


Balcony Visits

by MireilleGigglesnorts



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Fluff, I don't know what I'm doing with this, Identity Reveal, MariChat gives me life though, Unrequited Love, added ship tags because I'm going to touch upon them but this is still mainly a MariChat fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 20:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6344551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MireilleGigglesnorts/pseuds/MireilleGigglesnorts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What began as a fairly generic MariChat premise evolved into a game of "How Many Nods To Other Content Creators Can I Fit In One Fic?" Mild angst, pining, and thirst on all sides of the Square.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Feelings are hard to process.

~ ~ ~

With Tikki clearly dozing on her shoulder, Marinette closes her sketchbook and stands up from her desk. She carefully scoops the little kwami into her hand and climbs the ladder to her bed, depositing the red spirit onto her favorite spot in the middle of Mari's pink pillow. Tikki smiles in her sleep and balls up, antennae curling around her feet. Marinette herself isn't sleepy, and she glances back down at her desk. It's late July, première having ended only a couple weeks ago. She's been bunched up between shifts at the bakery downstairs, a few outings and lunch dates with Alya when she can manage it on the weekends, and the rest of her time has been spent here in her room. It's cluttered with a lot of half-finished clothing designs, the earliest iteration of a summer skirt on a dress form in the corner. Her sewing machine needs a new needle again, it's gotten so much use recently. It's time consuming, but she does enjoy it, and wants to have a wide portfolio of work to display to employers next year when she's done with lycée.

The days have been plenty warm but at night and with the river right outside her window, the breeze can be pretty chilly. Marinette heads downstairs to the kitchen for a few minutes, knowing both her parents are already fast asleep. Bakers _rise_ early after all. Heh. Soon she's back upstairs with a teapot steeping jasmine, and a few cookies and pastries on a plate as a late-night snack. Back in her room, she sets the tray on her desk for a minute to pull on a loose red sweater over the thin camisole she wears to bed in the summer with her pink pyjama pants. Ladybug slippers are the last acquisition other than adding her sketchbook to the tray, and carefully she climbs up to and on top of her bed, unlocking the trapdoor to the roof balcony. The tray is set on her little table, and scooted over to the sling chair so she can munch and draw comfortably.

For some ten or fifteen minutes it's very quiet. It's late at night, past midnight at least, and there's very little traffic on her street. Not many people are visiting the bakery or her former collège, or the cathedral on the other side of the river. Marinette can hear the water flowing, and the breeze over the rooftops, and stands up to lean against the rail. The few lights that stay lit on the buildings at night reflect and dimple in the waves, and as she watches she sees a familiar silhouette break the pattern in the reflection. She looks up in time to catch the form of Chat Noir tensing up on the roof of the cathedral, about to vault off and away to the next. Before he extends his baton, she calls to him without thinking.

"Chaton! Hé, Chat Noir!" 

He startles at his name, the magical cat ears atop his head flicking this way and that until they train in on her voice over the echoes between the buildings. She gives him a soft wave. He doesn't usually seem to hesitate; it's as though he's just now realizing where he is. After a few seconds though, he takes a step or two back and makes the jump over the river, alighting as softly as ever on the railing next to her. Involuntarily she had taken a step back as well, to accommodate presence of another person on her little balcony. They'd both grown up since the first time Chat Noir the superhero had paid her a visit, a few weeks after the events of the akuma victim Le Dessinateur.

  
"Bonsoir, Princesse."  


Marinette smiles at the nickname he's used for her over the years since that first time, but the smile fades as she realizes he isn't reciprocating it. She watches his eyes flit around the rooftop - sees her sketchpad on the ground beside the chair, pen forgotten and uncapped; notes the tea (jasmine, he can smell it even over the roses in bloom in the planter that hangs behind him on the railing) and the various baked goods on their tray - and then linger on her a few seconds longer than everything else, taking in her hair - undone but each pigtail's worth settled over the front of each shoulder - and crimson sweater and okay, there, apparently the ladybug socks peeking out from the pyjamas got a little smile out of him.  


  
"Bonsoir, Minou."

With a single finger and a petite smile she asks him to wait, and ducks back inside and downstairs for a second teacup. When she comes back up he's crouched by her striped chair, her sketchpad unopened but resting in one hand, the now re-capped pen in the other. She pours him tea and offers him a chocolate scone, and they trade their respective items. It takes several minutes for him to unwind whatever problem he'd been coiling himself around, and Marinette doesn't rush him, choosing instead to lounge on the chair beside him, nibbling at an almond macaron, the only one she'd dared to swipe.

"Marinette, how do you tell someone you like them?"

"Eh? Wh- you're asking me? I've never- I couldn't- I can't, I- I mean I've _tried ahaha .. ha_.. I don't know, I've tried, but I get all- all nervous and forget how words work, and how my mouth works because I'm looking at _his_ mouth, _oh my god_ I mean um, and I generally just- just make myself look like an idiot, haha!"

(("I've only ever been asked by Nath-- the _akumatized_ Nathanaël. Which, although weird and kind of flattering, was - I mean - that doesn't count right, there's a certain- he was, you know, coerced. He wouldn't even have come up to me otherwise, if Le Papillon hadn't brought out that side of him, right? I don't think anyone else has asked me... and the entire world knows I can't talk to Adrien. Except for Adrien. Oh my god."))

Marinette stumbles over her thoughts and words, speaking at the same time as thinking but thankfully not confusing too many of her thoughts into what she was saying aloud. She had been gesticulating with her half-eaten macaron during her babbled reply, and busies herself by munching on it, daring to meet the gaze from Chat she could feel upon her. Her cheeks are warm, and she bets he can see it with his night vision. He's looking at her in a combination of incredulity and complete seriousness, oh god he probably thinks she's overreacting to what should be a simple question for most people - people that can form complete sentences around the person they've been crushing on since the first year of collège. After a minute he wipes the confusion off his face with a very un-Chat-like, gentle smile and turns away to gaze over the roofs of Paris, then down at his mostly-ignored teacup.

"I doubt very much of that's true. You're very smart, Marinette."

There's a prolonged silence. It isn't exactly awkward, but rather .. pregnant with the questions Marinette wants to ask, that she's not sure she _should_ ask. They've met like this several times over the years since the first - does that make them friends? How much prying is it okay to do if you just want to help? Most of their prior conversations on her balcony had consisted of asking if he was alright after whatever most recent akuma attack had occurred, or him lightly teasing her about homework or asking what she was going to do on her next holiday. Like . . . friends, but the type of friends you could never really find the opportunity to actually spend much time with. She glances down at him, half-turned away but definitely leaning against her chair. Marinette studies what she can see of him from this angle for a moment; the way her eyes can easily trace his musculature beneath the skintight suit, the tiny bit of his real ear she can see from this side, the messy, windblown mop of blonde hair.

"Haven't you .. already told her, minou?" Very gently, the fingers of her left hand comb through his hair. He stiffens briefly when her nails scrape at his scalp, but after a few heartbeats he leans into it, and in no time at all her other hand comes up to join the first, alternating between combing his hair and massaging his scalp.

"It isn't her."

"But, you do like Ladybug? Or ah, well .. you say you do." She hesitates, afraid she's crossing too personal a line.

"Of course I do. I _love_ Ladybug, Mari."  
She pauses at the shortening of her name. It feels intimate, familiar, although it's the first time Chat Noir has called her that. Warmth blooms in her chest at his straightforward admission, and she's glad he's turned away from her. It gives her the bravery to lean over and drape her arms around his shoulders, hands resting lightly on the top of his arms, positioned as they are on top of his knees.

"So, it's someone you know when you aren't Chat Noir?" A small nod.

"Someone who knows you?" Another tiny nod. "Who doesn't know you care for them?" A third.  
"If it's so easy to tell Ladybug, why is it different for this other person then?"

~ ~ ~

Chat Noir leans thankfully against the simple affectionate embrace Marinette is giving him.

"Ladybug is everything I ever dreamed of - so strong, _so_ capable, a quick learner, a quicker thinker, incredibly brave, incredibly compassionate... a figure standing against the most minute injustices, and the largest. It's so easy to spill praise at her - to her face, at her feet, while kissing her knuckles, but she turns me away.. so easily. Every day."

He pauses for breath; that had come spilling out in a rush, but such an easy, ready rush, just as he described. He's loved Ladybug for something like four years now? Five?

"... It's been long enough that.. I suppose I am finally willing to consider that it may just .. always be one-sided. Perhaps it's time to try loving someone more down-to-earth than a superheroine." He coughs a bit awkwardly, and on the next word his voice cracks once. "It would just be nice to have someone else love me back, and say as much. Instead of pushing me away."

Chat realizes he's been rambling for a few minutes and that Marinette's presence is no longer pressed against his back. He looks sidelong to see her shrinking into her chair and sweater, trying to hide her face behind her kittycat-faced mug and largely failing.

"You never - I didn't think- I don't th- think that.. you ever told Ladybug." She watches him begin to protest, and emphasizes softly, "Not like _that_. ... You didn't even pun once, just now."

Chat tries to figure out if Marinette might have been on the sidelines during the many akuma attacks over the past several years. Had she overheard some of his flirty confessions to Ladybug? Or, well no, Alya openly runs the Ladyblog - she has from the day she conceived it, and Marinette is her best friend. Alya is sure to have gotten many instances of his attempts to woo Ladybug with his charm and punny wit on video to share with the net.

"No matter what I say, or how I've tried to say it, she's always just pushed me away. Sometimes with a smile, but it's still a push, no?" Chat smiles as he says it, full of fondness and clearly visible heartache.

After a moment he carefully sets down his forgotten, cold drink onto the ground and leans forward to rest his arms on the cable spool she uses as a balcony table, head upon them, facing away from Marinette. His voice is quiet, a little bit hopeful, a whole lot wistful.  
"I just figured, maybe I should try to love someone willing to love me back."

~ ~ ~

Marinette's heart is breaking, falling to pieces inside her chest. She knew Chat Noir was serious in his flirting, but not THIS serious. It's been a few YEARS and she never caught on that he meant every single silly flirt and awful pun and ... heartfelt confession. Of _course_ it all makes sense looking back, doesn't it always? A large, aching part of her wants to find Tikki (probably still sound asleep on her bed) so that Ladybug could suddenly appear and reciprocate his feelings. They didn't have to reveal themselves to do that. She could have a change of heart, and maybe, start to flirt back. She could start to fix the heartache she'd unintentionally been causing him all this time. But, no.. no. Too convenient a timing. Even if she lik- Marinette mentally clears her throat here- LOVES him, because _**of course she does**_ , _overwhelmingly_ , and that's why she always rebuked his advances- it's too dangerous - for them, for their families, their friends, their schoolmates. Of course Ladybug loves Chat Noir, but that can't come to light unless she wants him to start putting two and two together.

Marinette's voice is tiny at first, a squeak but she coughs and strengthens her resolve. He waited years for her. She can do the same and help him try to be happy with someone else.

"I think .. think that's entirely fair, Chat Noir. Love is- it should be, a two-way street. It's not fair to you, to pine for someone who can't love you too."

Chat's cat ears quirk a little, his tail shifting back and forth between his ankles where he's sitting on his knees beside the table.

"Isn't it selfish, though? To want more than one person?"

Marinette scoots her chair closer to him, so that she can reach his shoulder to lay a hand on it, a warm touch they can both feel through his suit.

"Love isn't a harmful, selfish thing that takes anything from anyone else, Chat, if you're respectful about it. It's something you give freely, and it's okay to want it in return."

He doesn't answer for a moment, but his ears lay back a little as he shifts his arms in order to reach over and gently twine his gloved fingers with hers.

~ ~ ~

He's been staring forlornly at the grain of the wooden table since he turned away from Marinette. A large, aching part of him wants to call on Plagg's awareness (currently 'sleeping' as best he's able while Adrien is suited up but not doing anything superheroic) in order to drop the transformation and confess on the spot to Marinette as himself. He can't, for the same exact reasons Ladybug has been pushing him away all this time. Identities revealed is dangerous knowledge. And even on top of that, he knows Marinette better than she's aware. If Adrien Agreste the stupidly handsome model, fencer, pianist, several-year classmate were to suddenly appear on her balcony, Marinette would revert to a bundle of stuttering nerves and incomprehensible, if adorable, half-formed thoughts..

It's the Marinette sitting behind and beside him that makes him happy. The Marinette that just talks to him, as an equal. As soon as he has this thought, he realizes he should be voicing it if he's going to get anywhere, and abruptly sits up and spins in place, one knee up near his chin, the other sideways under the table. Their interlocked right hands rest between them atop Chat's knee, and with his left hand Chat draws up the shoulder of Mari's sweater where it had fallen when she leaned down to comfort him.

Marinette's cheeks color at his renewed energy, and her ears burn a little when his claws gently graze her shoulder, but she smiles warmly at him even as her heart squeezes painfully in her chest. He can feel his heartbeat speed up at the encouraging look.

"Seems you've reached a decision, kitty. I'm glad."

His hand adjusts hers so he can rub the pad of his thumb over the back of her knuckles, and his free hand toys with the bell beneath his chin, making it chime a time or two. For the first time tonight his throat catches on what he wants to say, so he clears it and focuses his eyes on hers as he starts to speak.

"There's an amazing girl I know. A civilian, lives here in Paris. Gorgeous soft black hair, eyes blue as the sky, not afraid to look someone in the eye and give them a piece of her mind."

Here Marinette starts to blush in realization, to which Chat only grins, unwilling to break the gaze just yet.

"She's an artist, a designer, one of the best I've ever seen in fact. She kicks butt at video games, makes her own clothing, and stands up for others whenever they won't stand up for themselves. She's done it for her classmates tons of times, and did it for me. Tonight."

There are a dozen more things he wants to say but can't without risking heavy hints that he is Adrien. He leans into her personal space, just barely, eyes flicking over her flushed cheeks, the slightly open mouth and lips, a quick glance at her collarbones peeking from the neck of the sweater. He inhales slowly and exhales in a sigh.

"And she always smells _deliciously_ sweet."

Marinette can't speak. She can barely think. This is not what she had expected. She had imagined him giving her hand a squeeze, maybe giving her a thank-you hug for the affection and kind advice before pole-vaulting off her balcony, his mind set on asking out whatever person in his personal life he'd been thinking of all night. It wasn't supposed to be **her**! If it had been someone else she could have started to work on having Ladybug actually acknowledge his flirting as more than passing silliness, a part of the Chat Noir façade. This makes everything so much more complicated than it already is! He loved her, and now he - he loves HER?

Sensing the mental lock-up that was all-too-familiar from the Marinette Adrien encountered on a regular basis, Chat drops her hand, and gently drags her chair a few inches closer, his knees to either side of it. His movements slow and deliberate so as to give her plenty of time to react or decline, one hand reaches over her drawn-up knees to cup her cheek. The sudden heat even through his glove is intoxicating in the moment; without thinking Mari leans into his palm, eyes drifting closed for a few seconds, then snapping back open when he speaks again, pierced to the core by his bright green stare.

"You said love isn't selfish. That it's something you give, and hope to get in return."

Marinette licks her lips unconsciously with the slightest of nods and a whispered, "y-yeah. I think so."

"Then, can I give you my love, Mari?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marinette's sweater: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/2d/bc/17/2dbc17e333aaeb612b2fdca4b93b1335.jpg  
> Marinette's socks (probably made by her ❤ ) : https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/4f/2f/05/4f2f05f25c14b8d31a0ec7ab6a02962a.jpg  
> Marinette's mug (the black one of course) : https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/67/2d/94/672d94937289c3d11f12d2052b1a4cd4.jpg


	2. Actual kitten Adrien Agreste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Balcony scene continues! Chapter 3 (at least) is in the works. I have added a few extra tags which are currently unimportant.

Marinette _stares_ at Chat Noir, and he watches her pupils dilate as she slowly realizes the implications of what he's just asked her. His keeps his hand still on her cheek, mentally filing away the basally satisfied look on her face when he'd placed it there and she nuzzled into his touch. He can feel the warmth of her cheek radiating through his glove, and so much of him wants to bring up his other hand, move to her neck and caress her hair and figure out what to do that will either calm her pulse (he can feel it rabbiting up through her jaw) or make both of theirs go _crazy_. 

But Chat is patient, and dismisses that line of thought at least for the time being. He hadn't intended on dropping down to her roof tonight, but she had been the one to call to him, and he can't say no to Marinette. Doesn't know how, doesn't want to. Every time he'd visited her balcony in the past, they had chatted about this or that, nothing overly important, nothing that would really initiate a lasting friendship, but he'd always lingered a few minutes longer than the visit prior, hoping and contriving for another few minutes to stay and talk. It's just such a different Marinette from the one who seems so incapable of speech around his civilian self. The overexciteable girl is adorable, but clearly has him - Adrien - on a pedestal above the rest of the world, and when the statuesque young man on top of it makes the slightest effort at getting to know her, _that_ Marinette all but runs from him in embarrassment. 

Very slowly, Marinette comes back to life. If anything, the fiery blush on her cheeks has only deepened, reaching to her collarbones. Her eyes start darting over him - eyes, lips, shoulders, the bell below his chin .. somewhere farther south before snapping quickly back up. She squinches her eyes closed, gulps, and brings her arms up from where they'd been frozen at her sides. The red sweater's baggy sleeves are over her hands and she gently removes his hand from her cheek by replacing it with her own. After a moment she peeks out between them, and he's _still smiling and staring at her_ so she makes an unintelligible noise that's somewhere between a whine and a groan. Chat Noir thinks it's adorable but takes the hint that treating her like eye candy has made her uncomfortable, and turns around to lean back against the front of her chair with a quiet chuckle. It's his turn to wait for her to unwind from the curl of emotions and sudden anxiety, like she did for him a little while ago.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Another peek. ((Oh thank god.)) It's much easier for her to calm down when that glowing green stare isn't watching her so expectantly - hopefully, almost hungrily. She moves her hands out of the way to watch him; notes with a smirk that his magic ears are listening to her movements, the way her sleeves rustle as she rubs at her face, hear the slightly shuddery deep breaths she makes herself take. Marinette finds her mug from where she had set it beside the chair and takes a sip to wet her throat, then with all the bravery she can muster, scoots forward to put a pyjama'd leg on either side of him. He realizes her thighs are gently framing his shoulders, and now it's also his turn to color slightly when he tilts his head back to see that she's now staring very intently down at him. There's a smile in her blue eyes that doesn't quite erase the frown tugging at her lips.

"It's ... a very interesting, _tempting_ thought," she pauses to clear her throat, and her voice is pitched and low, ".. to tell you 'yes' and see what happens without worrying about it, Chat."

He stirs in interest, his typical minxy grin starting to flash, but then her hands are on his shoulders, rooting the movement, and she focuses on a point in space just in front of his feet, so that she can continue without certain thoughts of his mouth distracting her.

"But I have questions."

Chat fights the wave of self-doubt he's been assaulted with lately and wills his voice to be steady.  
"You can ask me anything, Princesse. Please."

Marinette inhales deeply, steadying the thrum in her chest that arose at the many different questions her less-inhibited self would ask.  
"Do you mean to l-love me, as you are now? As Chat Noir? Or as.. you? The real you."

Her hands have traveled from his shoulders, dipping lower to brush his collarbones, and are now toying with the edge of the collar on his suit, fingers tracing the edge. She isn't touching his skin but she can feel the heat from it and by golly that's _distracting_ , because it means he can feel it too.

He's silent for a long moment, many varied hypothetical scenarios of eventually detransforming in front of her flashing through his mind, scenes that aren't dissimilar from the daydreams about Ladybug here and there that he's entertained over the years. He swallows, staring at the groove beneath her chin, and the movement of his throat makes the skin by his collar brush her fingernails. She moves in again to barely brush the skin over his jugular on both sides. He manages to kill the instinct to shudder, only barely, but goosebumps rise on his neck to betray him.

"Until Le Papillon is out of the picture .. knowing my real face, my real name, is to only invite trouble for family and friends. ... Ladybug was right about that, from the beginning." He catches her spacey gaze with a minuscule lean backward into her chest. His head is only not resting in her lap by definition, as he's still holding the weight of it up himself. "I can't tell you who I am, Marinette. Not yet. And I'm sorry for that, I would tell you if I could."

She swallows to again wet her suddenly dry-feeling throat before asking another question, and can't help but notice the dilation of his pupils. He's watching her throat. Probably **has** been watching her throat. Licks his lips. She does too, unaware of the mirroring motion, but persists.  
"I don't need to know your real name to let you love me."

Hope sings in his heart and then he _does_ rest his head on her legs now, a kitten aching for affectionate touch. He doesn't move his body, but his hands find their way to her wrists, brushing her knees on the way up.

"But."

 

~ ~ ~

 

He'd been so close to tugging her down within range of being able to kiss her, any part of her. The drive to do so gutters and dies in the span of that word. 

"The danger works both ways, chaton. I won't know who you are but if we.. _ahem_ .. become.. _close_... If people see that, if one gossipy person sees Chat Noir loving a civilian... then rumors will start, cameras will start to follow you everywhere hoping to get a story. They would find me instead, put a spotlight on me. I wouldn't be able to leave my home without paparazzi and reporters trying to get photos and interviews. I would be in danger. And .. you would be in danger as well, because what better bait to trap a superhero, than a helpless civilian paramour?"

Marinette falls quiet, eyes alight in imagining it - it's already happened once to her, to Adrien. Even though it ended up being an illusion, an infatuated superhero meant to be thinking critically, meant to be smart and responsible, ended up nearly tossing away the Miraculous for a captured civilian. She's now imagining being somehow caged, as her normal klutzy, stuttering self and unable to call on Tikki lest she essentially hand her over to Papillon on the spot. Chat has put himself in harm's way without thinking dozens of times. Dislocoeur. Chronogirl. For her. For Ladybug, but for her. Of course he would walk right into such a trap for Marinette as well. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

Chat is imagining much the same thing as Marinette. She looks startlingly similar to Ladybug for a minute as he studies her face from below. The smile in her eyes is long gone; there's the set to her jaw and brows, a resolution of knowing the outcome of that hypothetical scene and the determination to avoid it. His heart weighs heavy in his chest, as though it physically dropped and is drooping uncomfortably, sticking wetly to his lowest ribs. He inhales unsteadily, which draws her eyes back down to his. They soften, and his look a little shinier than they did a few minutes ago. Both of them gives the other a tiny smile.

"You are right of course.. quite right, Mari. I could not live with myself if something happened to you just so Le Papillon could get to me."

He closes his mouth, then his eyes so he can pretend there weren't tears standing in them, and strokes minute aimless circles against the inside of her wrists. After a few minutes of amicable quiet, she withdraws her hands but only to pluck locks of hair away from his eyes. Chat shifts self-consciously, frowning faintly at himself. He draws his knees up in front of him, arms draped moodily on them, but his head remains lolled on her lap.

She watches his eyebrows knit together and his lips tremble for a second then the corners drag down into a .. almost a pout. Marinette remembers how he leaned into her touch earlier, and starts carding her fingers through his messy golden mop. It's pleasant for both of them; his hair is ridiculously soft and untangled for having been running over the rooftops of Paris an hour ago, and when her fingers start massaging his scalp again, he's lost to how lovely it feels, the half-grimace relaxing into what he hopes is a neutral sort of smile. His head rolls a little this way and that, silently encouraging her fingers to explore new areas. When her fingertips travel below his hairline, kneading firmly at his neck and below his ears, Chat Noir sighs his contentment and the faint rumble of what sounds like a purr on the end makes Marinette smile.

~ ~ ~

Tension melts away minute by minute like this until half an hour or more is gone, and for the first time tonight Marinette feels sleepy. Her movements slow as she begins to drowse in her chair, and when she leans back in the sling chair to stop straining her back, Chat finally drags his head off of her lap. He could honestly stay here all night, with Marinette's calves on either side of his shoulders, gazing out over the river, but the care he has for her overrides the lassitude and he stands and stretches, turning around. The forgotten tea kettle, two mugs, and what's left of the pastries he collects back onto the serving tray. 

Marinette stirs, more at the loss of his warmth than the small amount of noise. She quietly gets to her feet, blearily watching him and rubbing at one of her eyes, and then wraps her arms around his midsection from behind. Chat freezes for a second, then moves his hands to her elbows, gently tugging her around so he can properly embrace her back, his claws digging in just a little on her shoulders. At first she's shy again, face resolutely pressed against his chest, but then the sleepiness returns and they melt together into a cozy wrap of limbs leaning against the railing. Chat tries not to tense up when Marinette's head fits perfectly under his chin.

"You deserve it, chaton. You deserve all the love you want so much..."

He squeezes her a bit tighter, unsure how to answer, his chin resting gently on the top of her head. She's still going, mumbling quieter and quieter into the niche beneath his jaw, but Chat Noir has very good hearing.

"You deserve her love. You deserve _my love_. ... You should be loved, kitten, and I want so much to love you... _Ladybug_ should already love you. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve _you_."

 

~ ~ ~

 

Immediately after that last part Chat takes a half step back and cupping her jaw, raises Marinette's face up to look at him. 

"Please, _please_ don't think like that, Mari." He pauses, eyes skittering over her sleepy face, the red of her lips, the flushed cheeks, her mussed hair falling into her face. She pouts up at him, eyes too tired to cry but it's plain on her face how much she feels like she's done something wrong, like this caring, friendly schoolgirl has something to feel guilty about.

"You said you give love freely, and it doesn't harm anyone, and you hope for some back. Yes?" She nods, petulant with the sleep tugging on her senses.

"Well ... I loved you before I came here tonight. I love you more every time I get to speak with you, every time I learn something new about who you are. I assure you, Marinette, you deserve everything I could ever possibly give you, and still more."

There's a few seconds of quiet, where nothing happens except both of their eyes taking in as much of this suddenly emotional moment as they can, sky blue and emerald green flicking over the other person's lips, eyes, the smooth jawline, the freckles on a nose. Apprehension hangs palpably in the air between them.

"You need to sleep, Mari ... but, ah .." Chat leans in, only a few millimeters. He swallows and his voice is thick, deeper than Marinette has ever heard it, both as herself or as Ladybug. "It's very late. No one around here awake to see and gossip..." 

Marinette shakes her head fervently, then nods her head a minute amount, is already halfway raised on her tiptoes, worrying her lower lip between her teeth, watching every movement of his lips and the sight of this young woman so desperate to kiss him has Chat weak in the knees, chest tight and heartbeat wild. Reflexively he closes the distance he'd created a moment ago, the gloved hand moving from her jaw to palm the back of her head, claws tangling in her hair.

"Can I kiss you goodnight?"

" _Yes._ "

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

When Marinette wakes up mid-morning several hours later to her phone's alarm, she can't quite remember how the tea tray got back in her bedroom on the chaise lounge, or remember placing her sketchpad and pen back on her desk by the computer. She does remember why her lips feel a bit bruised, remembers it _vividly_ , ruminating on the memory with a soft smile and a few fingertips gingerly resting on her jaw. Her mind rehashes the events from last night starting all the way from when she decided to go outside to draw.

Then she sits bolt upright all of a sudden, and Tikki somersaults up into the air, wheeling around in confusion. "Marinette? Are you okay? What's going on??"

"He said it's someone he knows when not Chat Noir."

The little red kwami bobs silently in the air for a second, blinking. "... What?"

Marinette clutches her pillow and phone to her chest, eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

"He said it's someone he knows when not Chat Noir, and then confessed to me a few minutes later."

Tikki looks only marginally less confused than before. Marinette turns to her lucky spirit, but her mind is racing and she doesn't really focus on her kwami.

"That.. t-that means.. that Chat Noir knows me without his mask. That means I know _him_ without the mask."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marinette's sweater: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/2d/bc/17/2dbc17e333aaeb612b2fdca4b93b1335.jpg  
> Marinette's socks (probably made by her ❤ ) : https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/4f/2f/05/4f2f05f25c14b8d31a0ec7ab6a02962a.jpg  
> Marinette's mug (the black one of course) : https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/67/2d/94/672d94937289c3d11f12d2052b1a4cd4.jpg


	3. Punch the dough and blush a lot

As the shock of her realization slowly creeps back down to a manageable level, Tikki is still plainly confused about what transpired last night, so Marinette summarizes beneath her breath, starting to pace the floor of her room. It's more frantic muttering than anything else, darting around on _just_ this side of panic about what this could lead to. What this could mean! WHAT THIS _IMPLIES_. 

Marinette gets dressed in her usual ensemble out of habit, then glances up to the vanity mirror and spits a mild curse, remembering she's going downstairs to work. Aware that she's already behind, she sheds her outfit and puts on a sleeveless silk blouse, one of her favorites. She hastily combs away her bedhead, kwami bobbing sleepily over the trapdoor, and fingers fly as she tightly plaits each ponytail's worth of hair so there will be no flyaways today.

The lack of sleeves give a great range of motion for anything she might be doing, and it still had a very high collar, similar to the outfit her mother had been wearing in the bakery for a couple decades. Regular customers knew Marinette was the Dupain-Cheng's daughter, and even tourists and one-time customers never commented on it if they ever thought that the blouse looked unprofessional. Black slacks and flats are added, teeth are brushed down in the bathroom, and on her way downstairs she snatches her favorite handmade apron from the hall closet. A bit small, since she'd made it a few years ago and grown since then, but it's in good shape. It's two-tiered, red with black polkadots on top, and black beneath, with little ribbons at the pockets. 

Tikki hides in one of those pockets as Marinette reaches the bakery floor. Tom is in the bakery's prep kitchen a few rooms away, humming loudly to himself, and Sabine is flitting about the front store, carefully wiping windows and display counters free of dust in a habit Marinette knows well. The bakery was always spotless; her mother only "dusted" when she was trying to keep busy.

"Bonjour Maman. Sorry I'm late, I didn't quite wake up on time."

"That's all right dear. It's actually been pretty slow business this morning aside from our usual early birds, but I do need to go help your father. We have a rush order of a wedding cake and three dozen matching cupcakes, and you know he's not as good with the piping detail as I am, so as long as you're ready to go, you know how much I appreciate you working on the weekend --" 

"It's fine, I'll be all right up front by myself Maman. Not the first time I'll have kept things going on my own. Is there anything in particular you need me to do while you're busy?"

"No darling, not really. If you have enough time between customers you could start tomorrow's proof, or just - why not make something for yourself today? Practice is always good."

Marinette grins a bit as her mother kisses her cheeks fondly then disappears into the back of the building. Well, so what if she didn't quite inherit her parent's knack for baking skills? She's been working on it. In short order, as no one has yet come in, Marinette has dashed around and upstairs, and put together a simple bread dough. She brings it back out to the bakery wrapped in a cheesecloth to work at it on a table behind the register area, and Tikki emerges to join her, hovering at the far end since the table's jostling too much to sit on. The little red spirit watches her partner studiously ignore her, going through the familiar process of wiping the work surface clean, then sprinkling flour and a tiny bit of cornmeal on it.

"Marinette ..." Time to unplug the emotional faucet so the girl can work through her problem.

"Yes, Tikki." She picks up the dough, half-turns it, and slams it back down a bit harder than necessary. 

"Are you all right?"

Pick up, half-turn, thwump. Knead, roll, knead, pick up. Marinette refuses to look Tikki in the eyes when she finally begins to talk, low and steady ... at first.

"While half asleep, I let my superhero partner, who had just confessed a love for the very not-superheroic me, that he'd been nurturing for .. who knows how long.. kiss me. I let him kiss me, Tikki. I _wanted_ him to kiss me. I've been keeping him at arm's length for YEARS as Ladybug but since I started inviting him to my balcony on occasion, this - apparently - means he loves me? ME? We've barely talked! Why does Chat Noir like Marinette the klutz? I wanted to kiss him because I have - no, because _Ladybug_ has wanted to, but couldn't, because Ladybug THINKS and knows it isn't a good idea to - to smooch one's partner in defeating evil. But Chat Noir doesn't think! Nor, apparently, does Marinette Dupain-Cheng! Because I shouldn't have let him!!"

Marinette exhales in a huff, one of her fists up to the wrist in bread dough, and pauses for breath.

" ... Or maybe he does think and just doesn't care? Is he blind? I don't know what I was thinking, Tikki. I _wasn't_ thinking, that's it, that's the problem. But who knows what _he_ was thinking?! I shouldn't have let him kiss me, Tikki, AUGH!!! Because now I know even _less_ what he was thinking! Is he going to visit again? Do I want him to visit again now?! Should I _let him_ visit again? Yes, I love him Tikki, but he could be _anyone_ I know, that's what he said, that he knows me when he's not wearing the mask! This is so .. so stupid! Do I know him?! Do I like the other side of Chat Noir? Or maybe, do I actually love someone I barely speak to in normal life? Is Chat Noir's ego just getting the better of him? What if he's just some creep who thinks working on a book report together one time in one class means we're friends?!"

Tikki turns around barely two sentences into this very teenaged tirade so Marinette won't catch her rolling her eyes. The kwami knows Chat Noir's identity, just like Plagg knows Ladybug's. They are two sides of the same coin, chosen with purpose, and just don't know it yet. Marinette's venting continues and she begins to use the dough smacking the table to hide her emphases, since she can't shout and gesticulate because her parents aren't that far away. Tikki starts to flinch a little at each thumping noise. At least whatever this large lump of dough became, it would be well-kneaded.

"He knows me, and said I know him! Not _directly_ but that's what it means! He could be - be uh - Nathanaël! .. Well, no, Nath was akumatized and Chat Noir was there too. Nino!? Ivan?! No, I guess they were too. Almost everyone was from that first year, weren't they!"

Pick up the dough, punch the dough, slam the dough. Alternate between disgusted and incredulous faces while checklisting every class roster since the first year of collège. Punch the dough again. The door to the bakery swings open, and Tikki hisses Marinette's name in warning, but it goes unheard. 

"He could be .. someone else, from a different class! Someone I knew back then but stopped talking to?! Lycée is so much bigger and busier than collège was. He could be someone I never even looked in that way during collège because I was too busy staring at the back of - of Adrien's stupid, pretty _head_! . . . Oh my god. He could _be Adrien_ and I wouldn't even _know_!" 

Marinette finally looks up from her ranting after that that bit, a little winded, and Tikki is now half-hidden below the edge of the table, certainly out of the line of sight from the bakery's public area, and is frantically gesturing for Marinette to turn her head, which she misinterprets as a signal for 'enough already!' 

"Well he could! I could have k-kissed Adrien and I wouldn't even have been lucky enough to have known it was _him_!"

Marinette finally turns to the storefront and steps up to the register, wrenching her voice up into the 'bubbly-customer-service' range from the 'furious and furtive grumbling below one's breath' area it had been in, just in time to see one pretty-headed Adrien Agreste gently shutting the bakery door behind him. 

"Bonjour-et-bienvenue-à-Boulangerie-Pâtisserie-Tom-et-Sabine!" Marinette's voice cracks a bit higher as Adrien turns to the sound of her voice, and at the ready smile that lights his features from "stupidly handsome" up to "distractingly handsome", her heart skips a beat and only her years of baker's-apprenticeship habits keep her floured hands firmly in the pockets of her apron and not clutching at her face in horror - the face that she can feel warming already. 

"S-salut, Adrien."

"Salut Marinette!" The young man graces her with a friendly smile and a bit of an awkward wave. "Did I uh, hear my name a moment ago?"

"No!! Yes! Euh I mean uh .." Marinette's hands fly up in front of her as though to keep him at a distance, then she coughs and straightens up, one hand tugging nervously at a braid. "I mean I s-saw you through the door just uh, just before you came in! _Quelle surprise!_ Haha, ha!"

Oh yes, Marinette of quick recoveries, that's her. Perhaps she can hide in the small trash bin here behind the counter, if she hunches ...

"Ah, okay, I see." 

Adrien smiles warmly, and spares her the interrogation that his curiosity shouts at him to follow up with. He is pretty sure he'd heard "kiss" and "luck" in the bakery just before he had walked in, but brushes the inquisitive thoughts aside and occupies himself with looking at cakes in the glass displays and the jars full of candies with half faked, half legitimate interest. He's waiting, _waiting_ , letting Marinette come up with the next thing to say at her own pace. The opportunity to see Marinette again so soon had basically fallen into his lap, and he's determined to get an actual conversation out of her before he has to go be his usual busy self again.

The midmorning sun streaming through the building's large windows is doing a wonderful job at making Adrien look as modelesque as inhumanly possible, and although she hasn't sat behind him in any classes for a few years, Marinette is quickly falling back into the old habit of watching the back of his head. Close to a minute passes before Tikki dares to peek out from underneath the work table, dramatically rolling her eyes at just how much has not yet transpired, and swoops over to Marinette. The spirit of luck gently pinches Marinette's backside and when the girl looks down, remembering where she is and ((ohmy **GOD** Adrien is in the bakery WHY NOW WHY ME)) Tikki makes an exaggerated shooing motion, mouthing as clearly as she's able, "GO. TALK. TO. HIM."

There is a brief moment of silently-mouthed arguing between Kwami and Chosen, and when Marinette straightens up to glance furtively at Adrien for a second, Tikki takes the opportunity to headbutt the girl as hard as she can, forcing her partner out past the register's countertop. Adrien catches the motion out of the corner of an eye, but pretends to look very interested in a fluted vase of pinwheel lollipops.

"So, uh, A-Adrien, what brings you to my place? My BAKERY? **MY PARENTS' BAKERY?** "

Marinette flushes furiously in already-heaping piles of embarrassment, wincing and cringing at herself with her eyes closed, back ramrod-straight and hands jammed into the pockets at her front again. A followup thought occurs, so she lets it through in a strangled voice in a valiant effort to erase what she'd just asked, opening her eyes to stare at the tile floor in determination. 

"You don't - I thought th-that you aren't - that you don't eat sweets."

~ ~ ~

"Hah, no that's true, at home at least. Père thinks that if I eat something that actually tastes good, I'll become addicted and ruin my figure, so I have a strict limit and anything sweet is _supposed_ to be made by our chefs." He grins ruefully at the candy jar.

Adrien straightens up from his practiced pose of bent-over, feigned interest to face Marinette politely and momentarily loses his train of thought. Except for the girlish look of the pigtails - braided, he notes immediately - she looks like she could have just walked off the set of a cooking show. The blouse and slacks are adequately bleak and professional but casual enough for comfort, but the apron is cute, just plain _cute_ and somehow red and black polka dots really suit her. There's a light dusting of flour all over her clothes, and a whole handprint of it on one of her plaits. 

She's using her self-diversionary staring tactic somewhere at the floor past his feet, just like last night, but what really strikes him with her tense, too-straight pose is the subtle tease of toned musculature he can see in her arms and shoulders. Marinette has _strength_ hiding behind her awkward glancing and cute handmade outfits, and Adrien falls a bit deeper in love right then and there.

"I am probably going to buy something before I leave though. Out of spite..." He pauses, the spirit of Chat Noir all but clawing at his brain, forcing him duck his head a smidge, to try and catch her eye for the next line. 

"... because _everything_ in here looks delicious to me."

He watches Marinette's eyes widen, then dart _almost_ up to his face before she rocks back on her heels, hands still jammed in the apron pockets, then wheel away from meeting his eye on the ball of one foot. She heads back through the swinging gate that partitions the storefront from the bakery prep area, looking far too casual. It's plainly forced nonchalance, but Adrien catches sight of a giddy grin on her face. There's the barest hint of a smirk toying at the edge of his mouth as he casually follows and leans a hip on the register's counter to watch as she pokes the dough-ball she'd apparently left there before he came in. Why hadn't he tried this direct approach before? It's **much** more fun making her blush on purpose instead of it being an unavoidable side effect of existing in her presence.

" _Ahem!_ So euh, A-Adrien.. has - you have, I mean - a free morning?" She's chewing on the inside of her lower lip, pressing a line and and then several dots into the dough. _Certainly not_ hiding a smile. "That's um, uncommon, isn't it?"

"Sadly, yeah. Photographer for the shoot at the park next door apparently had a disagreement with something he ate last night. Nathalie didn't have anything else lined up until this afternoon at 3 o'clock though, and I managed to talk her out of making me go back home early for lunch."

Marinette peeks at him sidelong beneath her lashes, glances down at her newly polkadotted dough-lump, and then apparently searches for steadiness from within while pondering something. It takes a moment but when she turns around and leans back against the table's edge, most of the tension has gone from her arms and shoulders. There's a certain set of stubbornness to her jawline, but where strength had teased before, Marinette is all flowing lines, soft curves again.

"Are you hungry? I could make you something."

Adrien lights up with an undeniably simple, pleased grin - one that Marinette watches, her concerned face softening into amused crinkles at the corner of her eyes and mouth, but he shakes his head and just leans forward over the counter, hands gripping the edge to keep himself connected to something solid because he feels like otherwise he might float to the ceiling. Marinette gave him _tea_ and a _chocolate scone_ last night. He'd gladly let her push food at him every day of his life.

"No, but thank you! Really, thank you .. at least not right now, I had a little breakfast earlier."

"Oh, okay. Well.. good. I thought maybe you skipped it for the photoshoot." She allows herself a little smirk, and faux-scolds him, wagging a finger in his direction. "Don't skip breakfast, Adrien. It's the most important meal of the day, you know."

"Duly noted. What did you have, then?"

Her hand hangs in midair, drooping, and then she sidesteps away from the work table. 

"Okay well, _technically_ I haven't eaten YET but I was making ... euh, this? Maybe. Eheh .. "

"Maybe?" Adrien sinks back down onto his elbows on the countertop, curious but mostly confused.

"It um. Well it's rising now, and then I have to knead it again a bit, and let it rise a little more, and then bake it, so I guess it might end up as more of a _lunch_ by then? ... If it turns out okay." Marinette's hands raise to her chest as though to fiddle nervously with her shirt, but she glances at her hands and forces them down into the pockets of her apron once more.

"... 'if'. The daughter of two bakers isn't sure if her bread will turn out bread-like?" Her head whips up so she can pout fiercely at him, and Adrien can't help but chuckle at her indignant expression.

"Yes, 'if'! I just started learning to bake on my own this year! Don't laugh at me!"

"Sorry, sorry!" He straightens up and raises his hands in surrender, but his attempt at placating just makes her puff her cheeks in a petulant huff, and suddenly he's reminded of the half-asleep princess from very early this morning again and his heart skips a beat or two as though to bring his focus back.

"If it makes you feel better, I've been trying to learn to cook since I was 14 and I still stink at it. I am passably decent at cheese on toast and that's _it_. ... **If** you like your toast extra, extra toasty."

That does it. Her resistance to forgiving his teasing dissolves and she's giggling, imagining him scraping crumbs off of a slice of unidentifiably blackened bread with a butter knife while standing next to an ostentatiously fancy toaster oven. He watches her giggle fit, mesmerized, and sinks back down onto the counter, head on his arms and a dopey grin on his face. 

"Man, I love your laugh."

Marinette startles and half-chokes, because there's no way she misheard that, he's only a few feet away and it wasn't even an attempt at a whisper.

"I love your laugh? I do? _You_ do? You - .. heheh, what?"

"Yeah. I love your laugh, and I love your smiles. They remind me of someone, but they're so much more _you_. I've missed hanging out with you, Mari."

 _Mari._  
((Oh my god.))  
She's watching him smile like a doe-eyed calf at her, and the giggly grin on her face is slowly being replaced with a combination of blushing and thinking, chewing on her lower lip. At the back of her mind crosses something she, as Ladybug, had remarked to Adrien several years ago, at the exact moment he'd said the same.  
_**Mari.**  
_ ((Oh my _god_ , Adrien is-))

"Adrien! You are a darling young man now, look at you!"

Marinette flinches out of her reverie as her mother sneaks up behind her from the back hallway. Adrien reluctantly drags his gaze off of one woman to the other, straightening up and reapplying his perfect-gentleman face.

"Bonjour, Madame Cheng. It's good to see you again."

She crosses the space in a few steps, passing her daughter right by so that she can put her hands on Adrien's shoulders, beaming at him.

"Tom and I haven't seen you in ages! We nearly thought you two had had a falling out or something, it's been so long since we've seen you around here."

"Ah, no! No ma'am, nothing like that. I, at least, like Marinette far too much." He grins lightly, glancing over the top of Sabine's head at the other teen, who is now _furiously_ red in the face and glaring daggers at the back of her mother's head. "Just been busy!"

Sabine smiles knowingly up at him, then turns back to Marinette, who composes her face into something less unfriendly in record time.

"Speaking of _busy_ , Maman..! Weren't you _busy_ helping Papa pipe cupcake frosting??" 

"I heard talking, so I came to see if you needed any help with the customers, that's all dear. But I see now, only one person, and he's not interested. Well, not in a cake." 

Sabine peeks past her daughter to the worktable, and reaching beneath the table's edge, procures a baking peel and with a lifetime of practice, slides it beneath the rising dough in one fluid motion. 

"What a cute ladybug loaf, my dear! Our local customers would love this. I'll go put this in the oven for you, and if it holds the shape well, I may have you make more of these later." 

Mama Cheng starts back through the hallway, her voice carrying over her shoulder, and fresh daggers are shot from Marinette's eyes at the retreating form. 

"As soon as I'm done in here I'll come back up front so you two can go to lunch, too, unless he wants to stay here and work for me instead."

Adrien is trying so, so hard not to let loose with awkward chuckling, pretty sure that if he did Marinette would spontaneously combust. The flush on her face from just before her mother had arrived, is burning like stoplights at the top of her ears and on the back of her neck, a bright contrast to the white and black of her shirt. His thoughts flicker to a certain highlight of the wee hours of this morning, and he clears his throat to regain Marinette's attention.

"I'll work the register in your place if I get to wear an apron like yours." Marinette can hear the grin in his voice, and slowly turns around to assault him with the most deadpan expression she can muster after so much blatant teasing. 

"If I make you an apron, my mother really will expect you to work here forever, and then I would never have a moment of peace again. And I would probably die of embarrassment after the first day, cause you're both ... You're both mean.. teasing ... meanies. Jerks."

She toys with the ribbons attached to the pockets on her apron, but the vehemence is gone and she's peeking out from under her lashes again and Adrien wants to make statements with his mouth about what he wants to do to her lip when she nibbles at it in front of him like she's doing now.

"I wasn't teasing .. and if your mom wasn't either, I fully intend to take her up on the opportunity to take you to lunch. If you'd like that."

He doesn't do anything to mask the hopefulness on his face, and Marinette's thoughts also drift back to the wee hours, when another bright green pair of familiar eyes was staring her down, looking just as hopeful but far more hungry. It takes her a long minute to detach herself from the enthusiastic thumping her heart had restarted at the memory, and she nods, finally looking away. She's smiling to herself about something, and glances back up.

"Y-yeah. Yeah, I'd like that a lot."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mari's work blouse: http://i.imgur.com/Ie9XE0a.png  
> Mari's apron: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/7a/78/aa/7a78aa49788e842d108aa6a4fb1fcbeb.jpg


	4. a lifetime of discipline is hard to shake off

Marinette waves silently to the departing form of Adrien, at the curb and ducking into the backseat of the silver car he is forever ferried around in, a soft smile on her face. The handsome boy smiles as well and returns the wave, but with reservations in the motion. It's too polite, a practiced goodbye that's carefully impersonal with his father's assistant Nathalie in the front passenger's seat. She watches the car pull away and turn the corner, waiting until it's out of sight before turning to the bakery and going inside. Her face she keeps a neutral mask until the current pair of customers in the shop have made their sweet-toothed decisions and left, then she all but leaps past the register's small counter to hug her mother, smiling but embarrassed and red and buried in the woman's shoulder.

"Ma _man_!" Marinette whines piteously, aggreived.

"Mari _nette_!!" Sabine too easily mimics her daughter's tormented tone, smiling down at her fondly.

The girl lifts her face to frown as angrily as she can.

"I love you Maman, but ooOOOooooh I hate you a little right now. That plan was worse than some of the schemes Alya has pulled on me!"

"Oh darling, it was just lunch with a boy. It can't have been that bad."

"You weren't there, you don't know! It wasn't _bad_ but it wasn't.. It was good I mean but he - I don't know if -"

"Halloo, do I hear my little Marinette?" Tom rounds the corner from the back hallway, and after setting the tray of oven-fresh croissants on a table, wraps her up in a bear hug with a little spin. "Did you have fun on your date?"

" _Mamaaaan_!"

"Oh come on, of course I had to tell your father!"

"I can barely talk to him, Maman! You set me up!!" 

Papa sets his daughter back on the floor and searches her pouting face, his large hands gently resting on her shoulders.

"Come now, are you actually upset? He didn't string you along after all, did he?"

Marinette shifts her weight anxiously from one foot to the other, chewing her lip and glancing between her father's concerned face and her mother's mildly amused one. Then she stares at the floor, chin jutting in a halfhearted sulk.

"No ... He's very kind, Papa. It's- it's why I like him. Part of why. ... Maman doesn't have to look so pleased with herself though."

At that Sabine steps closer and cups Marinette's face, gently kissing her on the forehead.

"I'm pleased with _you_ , Marinette. The only reason I teased about it is because you're so easy to tease. I know how much you like that young man, and it's not hard to see that he seems to be plenty interested in you too. He's a good person. I'm glad for you."

The sulkiness dissipates as parental affection overrides her pouting mood, and Marinette sighs, giving up.

"Do you guys still need me to work the register today? I have some designs I should get to work on .."

Her parents exchange a look, well aware that's their teenaged daughter's code for 'I have to go vent to my best friend about my boy problems', and both of them shrug, confused at her apparent low mood. They had both expected that she would come home exuberant and bubbly.

"Go ahead dear. I think the afternoon business will be light today anyway. Do you want me to call you down for dinner when it's ready?"

"Oh, euh .. no, thanks Maman. I ate plenty enough with A-- at the café. If I get hungry later I'll make something for myself."

Marinette pecks her father's cheek when he bends for another quick hug, and the girl heads up to her room, purposefully dragging her feet on the several flights of stairs. 

~ ~ ~

The final set, the ladder to her loft bed, suddenly seems lengthy and exhausting. She shrugs off her black overshirt and flops face first into her pillows. After a quiet moment, she feels the familiar feather-light weight of her spotted kwami sitting on her shoulder. Patient silence is the only thing in the room after that, and it takes several minutes for Marinette to collect her thoughts and mumble into the fabric of the long cat-pillow her face is pressed against.

"... I had thought I'd be happier about having gone out to lunch with the boy I've had a crush on since I was fourteen."

The ladybug spirit sighs and strokes Marinette's back, her tiny version of a reassuring hug.

"You know he likes you, Marinette. Even if it doesn't seem like it all the time, even if he doesn't know how to express it when other people are around."

"I had thought .. Just earlier today I mean, for a minute, I had thought that- .. that Adrien was Chat Noir. I was so excited, for a bit."

Tikki pauses, her antennae quirking forward in interest. "You did? ... But now you don't? What makes you say that?"

"I just -- you were there with me, Tikki. You heard how - you heard everything. He called me 'Mari' earlier, and for just a second, I thought.. that Chat Noir was there. No one else has ever called me that. And, ha! heheh! How great would that be? Annoyingly handsome boy could be my just plain annoying cat that likes both sides of me and is really, really good at kisses."

She doesn't precisely hold her breath in the human sense, but Tikki leans forward, shifting on Marinette's shoulder in anticipation.

" ... But he's just too different! He's too .. perfect. Too rigid. There's no way. Chat Noir is a goof that falls over himself. He tries too hard and brags a lot and is full of his ego, and- and .. and makes terrible puns. I'm not sure Adrien is contractually _allowed_ to make puns. Making puns is - they probably ruin his father's reputation .. by association or- or something .."

There's a pause, then one self-pitying chuckle into the pillows.

"Paris poster boy makes Chat Noir-level cringeworthy pun at Fashion Week press event. The _Gabriel_ brand stocks decline 20% in ten minutes..."

The second massive eyeroll of the day from the kwami again goes unseen by the teenage girl as she trails off into the pillow. Today is apparently not the day Ladybug and Chat Noir will deduce each other's identities. Sensing the moment for being a listening mentor has gone, the kwami moves to up near the head of the pillow-cat. Marinette shifts onto her back, staring up at the sky through the trapdoor to her balcony, and reflects on her "date".

~ ~ ~

As soon as they were in public, he had hid. She had watched nearly in real time as Adrien had settled a mask into place. He had gone from relaxed lazing over her counter with a hazy smile _definitively_ directed her way before the interruption by her mother ... to guarded, polite, full of formalities and the habits of haute couture socialites the further away from the bakery's doorway they'd walked.

The lunch was pleasant enough (Mediterranean salads and cups of spicy tomato bisque, seated outdoors beneath a patio umbrella) but left her with a distinctly empty feeling compared to the flattering pleasure of how much he'd been indulging her in a sense of reunited familiarity.

He was kind, aware of how much she was focusing on eating her food properly - delicately - _slowly_ (how awfully embarrassing would it have been if she had dropped her fork on the ground and had to retrieve it, or splashed her soup onto her shirt like a child, or knocked her drink off the table? Thankfully she'd kept her typical clumsiness at bay) and had chattered amicably about small nothings enough for both of them so there wasn't too much awkward silence. 

He was handsome, and a perfect gentleman, and ... so very much a false façade that the difference had almost felt like an insult. He'd been flirting with her _so blatantly_ as any infatuated person would have in the bakery that there was no possible way Marinette could have convinced herself he hadn't been. But out there, in the open with Parisians and tourists alike streaming past their table a few feet away, he felt terribly distant. Beautiful, charming, but like a star that burned too hot to try reaching out to touch. An unattainable goal all over again, just like she'd felt during the first year or so of collège. Marinette was just along for the ride, feeling lucky simply to be sitting with him while they happened to be eating lunch.

And of course ... then came the call (("Oh no .. I'm so sorry, I have to take this call, pardon me for just a moment Marinette" as he gets up and excuses himself out of earshot, so polite, too formal, we're friends at _least_ , not business partners, it's **okay** Adrien)) from Nathalie, who managed to switch around several of his appointments and engagements for the evening, effectively cutting his previously free-until-3pm afternoon in half. Adrien reseated himself with another apology and stabbed at his salad, and Marinette watched his mood spiral with awkward glances over her soup, but it was a curious thing. He was _still_ polite, _still_ chatting about this and that, and trying _and managing_ to smile at her. 

He's a model - he can probably fake beautiful perfect smiles in his sleep - but it's sad. 

_He's_ sad, and there's apologies in his eyes while he halfheartedly jokes that his father's assistant is sometimes too good at her job of managing his life, and she tries to assure him with shy smiles that -  
No, shh, it's okay. You don't have to apologize to me.  
It's okay!  
You're held to high standards, I know that.  
It's okay.  
Your father expects a lot of you. I know that too.  
It's _okay_.  
I'll be waiting for next time if you want to have a next time, so . . . it's okay.

But both of them knew that things are rarely that serendipitous. His schedule has been tightly locked within Nathalie's iPad since before Adrien and Marinette had even met each other. There probably won't **be** a 'next time' in the foreseeable future. And so, Marinette had tried to untie the coil of fluttery tension in her stomach. Maybe he hadn't purposefully been able to make time to see her, but he'd used the time he'd found to come find her - _her_ \- outside of school, outside of their circle of friends, outside of any kind of formality. 

She tried to enjoy that, tried to laugh more often and more naturally and make him feel more comfortable with being visible in the public eye despite his face occupying half the ad space in Paris.

But they were maybe empty laughs, and he maybe could tell she was trying to help him, which maybe pricked of pity instead of empathy, and he was maybe radiating loneliness despite how much he was enjoying spending time with her over a simple lunch at a café.

~ ~ ~

Eventually Marinette stops ruminating on what could have gone better, or worse, about the first half of her day. She considers telling Alya, who would of course want as many details as she could glean, but decides not to. It felt overall like a disappointing first date, if calling it a "first" date was even accurate since there wasn't really a chance for a second.

She has the feeling Adrien will bottle up his opinions about today and probably not tell Nino, and so long as that was the case, Alya wouldn't find out and thus wouldn't wheedle at her for juicy tidbits - of which there was a distinct (and if she was honest with herself, disappointing) lack anyway. If she did tell Alya, then Alya would tell Nino, and Nino would prod Adrien, and Marinette doesn't want to bring Adrien's mood down any more than it managed already. Their best friends are always well-meaning, but their tendency to conspire and plot to meddle with her and Adrien was not what any of them need right now.

After a time spent moping at the trapdoor above her bed (which as her train of thought begins to drift serves only to remind her that that's the access to the roof. The roof upon which she briefly made out with Chat Noir in the wee hours of this morning. Roof makeouts were technically only a few feet away from a few more feets' drop down ... onto her bed. THAT's a thought.) Marinette sighs at nothing, no one specific, and forces herself down the ladder and into her desk chair. 

She stretches and leans back, slowly spinning in place to survey her roomful of unfinished designs. There's a skirt which needs its seam restitched, a blouse which is missing a collar and cuffs and buttons, the earliest version of a complicated formal dress. A headband on a blank mannequin's head which has beads and a ribbon attached to it only with straight pins so far.

She should work on any or all of these, but instead she turns back to the desk and reaches for her sketchbook. Last night's page had only acquired a new doodle of a ladybug on flower in a vase, after she'd gone up there with her tea and before Chat had arrived. Hunching over she begins to sketch on a fresh page. She hasn't made an apron for anyone but herself yet, but she learned when young that when inspiration strikes you're not meant to argue.

~ ~ ~ 

Marinette heads downstairs much later in the day than it feels; it's a poor habit of hers to put hours of work in at a time without thinking when the right spark ignites her focus. It's past 8 in the evening, and she catches her mother just before she heads to their bedroom. Tom is already in there and snoring, since he gets up even earlier than Sabine. Mother and daughter exchange a hug and kiss and then the girl is by herself in the kitchen. 

Sabine had baked her loaf from earlier and left it on the counter, and Marinette chokes on a laugh at her own expense. The poor little thing is, well, lumpy. Sticking out from beneath the bread is a note with both of her parents' handwriting.

**[Remember that we use tools to score the loaves so that they can expand in a controlled way when they rise in the oven. Try that next time. :) - Papa  
It was a good lesson on why poking holes doesn't work though, wasn't it? I think what you were trying for will work, but you might have to try a few more times and experiment with what kind of score marks will create the patterns you were hoping to see. Try again, _mon chouchou_. - Maman]**

Since she had only used her finger to make indentations for the ladybug design, the airy dough had merely pushed back up as it expanded in the oven, resulting in a perfectly edible loaf of bread that looked rather like an oddly-shaped, toasted mushroom cap. ... Heh. At least Adrien won't see it. Plum preserves and some peanut butter make her failed bread-design experiment into a viable couple of sandwiches, and with a few cookies for Tikki and a glass of water, the girl goes back upstairs.

It's her turn to patrol the city since Chat Noir was out doing the work last evening, and as she and her kwami prepare for a good couple hours of roof swinging and parkour, Marinette slowly realizes that she has somewhere in mind she wants to go. Every night she hopes that Le Papillon is already asleep (since he too is a human beneath the miraculous stone's superpowered costume) so there will be no akuma to contend with, that no one will be in danger, for just one more day. But it's the first time her hopes for an uneventful patrol have been for less altruistic reasons.

A flash of bright white-pink illuminates the room for a second, and then Ladybug jumps up through the trapdoor and onto the balcony. She doesn't linger, yo-yo zipping out to the closest building to pull her up for the first surge of momentum, putting a large chunk of distance between herself and her civilian home. As she unhitches her yo-yo for another swing after the apex of that initial arc, she glances over the rooftops. The Agreste estate stands out easily in the last minutes of twilight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gratuitous food imagery!  
> Adrien and Mari's lunch: http://imgur.com/a/LkuNQ


	5. Great. GREAT.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T for Teen+. Soft warning for intimate description, and a few curses.

Her city seems sleepy as the evening cools down. There's absolutely nothing of interest going on; no back-alley muggings, no fires breaking out, not even drunken scuffling outside of any bars in the seedier areas in which she could intervene. Ladybug completes her habitual zigzagging lap of Paris in what might be a record time, and out of what might be procrastination instead of double-checking, branches off the usual path on a second go-around. There's nothing. She alights on top of the Sacré-Coeur Basilica and leans lightly against the stone base of a statue for a short break to catch her breath. 

Twilight has dipped beyond the horizon and the sky is darkening a shade at a time as she watches, listening to the sounds of the city tucking itself in. Ladybug paces back and forth between the two equestrian statues, considering whether or not she should tamp down her itch for meaningful conversation with a certain handsome boy and just go home to sleep. She only got, what, perhaps six hours last night? And she's been working herself thin; she needs to rest and refocus on her design work. She should _forget_ about the way Chat's lips felt against hers last night, against her neck and shoulders and once upon her collarbones. She should shrug off the way Adrien actively flirted heavily with her for the first time _ever_ then proceeded to clam up as soon as they walked outside. For now anyway, she should leave her dealings with these boys behind her. 

She could try to approach him later in a more personal-yet-impersonal way that he'd be comfortable with. She wonders if he has a handle on any of the instant messengers she uses. Maybe she'll find him when lycée began again in September and ask for his number? She knows he wouldn't have a problem with that. Alya and Nino both text him pretty regularly, while she.. she'd just never gotten up the courage to ask if she could as well. 

Should, should, should. Probably won't do any of the things her conscience is advising.

The spotted superheroine placed a hand against the cool bronze of the statue during her rushed thoughts, and looks up into the impassive face of Jeanne d'Arc. There could be larger problems than being torn between wanting to pursue the boy you've been crushing on for years, versus wanting to lose yourself in the fiery, tempting sins of raw attraction to your catsuit-wearing crimefighting partner that you've recently admitted you love, she supposes. But this hero is still only a teenager, with typical teenaged problems and stresses and worries and wants on top of defending against the forces of a power-hungry Miraculous wielder.

Ladybug turns to the south and leaps from the Basilica at a run, yo-yo darting out to start her back toward her neighborhood.

~ ~ ~

The room she knows is his is barely lit when she passes it the first time. Ladybug doesn't possess her partner's ability of night vision; she can't see in beyond the couch, which is only visible because it's white, catching the light of what she assumes is probably the computer setup on his desk. There isn't anyone in it from what she can see, so off she goes again, zipping to catch the next chimney or antenna block or streetlight. 

On the second pass, fifteen or twenty minutes later and from a different angle of approach so as to appear at least somewhat casual, there still aren't any lights on. Maybe whatever else was put on his itinerary for the afternoon had tired him out - it seemed he was either already asleep, or probably still out doing .. whatever it was Nathalie had penciled into his evening. She can't... well, she _could_ , but probably _shouldn't_ make herself a point of interest to anyone passing by on the streets below by swinging around the Agreste family estate all night. Especially if he might not be home soon, or may already be asleep until morning. 

A mental sigh. Back home after all.

She almost makes the practiced little hitch of her shoulder that would travel down the line of the yo-yo to detach it from whatever its loop was lodged around, but notices a sudden movement at the window out of the corner of her eye and lets herself swing back, shedding momentum with subtle counter-weighting of her legs. He's pressed against the glass, nose smudging the pane, and at first she merely watches him, idly amused at how suddenly childish he looks - staring with an open mouth, fogging the window with his breathing, hands splayed upon it. Ladybug hangs motionless across the street, one arm at her side and the other holding onto the yo-yo's string. 

After a moment, she loosens their staring contest with a smile and gentle wave. He startles out of his awed gaze and returns the wave, then spins in place, looking around and behind him for something. He holds up a finger then darts away into the darkness of his room where she can't see. A short moment later he's found a school notebook and a marker, and carefully writes something on it before holding it up to her on the other side of the window.

**[Sorry, I didn't mean to stare. Are you busy? Would you like to come in?]**

As a matter of fact, she very much would, and has thought about doing so more than once since the first time she - Ladybug - had first had the opportunity. Looming presence of his icicle of a father notwithstanding, her temporary use of the Agreste mansion as a base of operations while fighting Jackady the akumatized hypnotist had given her some insights to Adrien she probably would never have had otherwise. She's kind of hopeful something like that might happen again, a nuance Marinette can gently approach and try to seem natural about since public-face Adrien is so apparently difficult to crack. 

There's also just something about going inside his home that sends a cloud of butterflies into the pit of her stomach. There's a certain framed photo of him in a black hoodie that a younger Marinette had briefly entertained the idea of breaking and entering to steal.  
... For reasons.

She makes a show of thinking hard about his offer, looking overly dubious and rubbing pensively at her chin with the free hand. The flicker of a grin ghosts over him and he flips the page, writing something else.

**[Won't your arm get tired?]**

Once she sees that, the free hand goes to her hip in a fist, and one eyebrow raises beneath her mask. Her mouth smirks to the side and she stares at him dead-on while doing pull ups.  
With the one hand.  
She can't hear him as he bursts out laughing but can imagine the sound just as well; it was the dangerous first step into falling for him back then in the rain. Ladybug switches hands and just as smoothly resumes some more pull ups, feigning a nonchalant yawn. His grin only widens as he chuckles, clearly enjoying her display, but as she glances pointedly around at his wall of windows he regains her attention with a wave of his arm. One last thing gets written down on a fresh page.

**[Bathroom that way -- > Hug the wall to the left of it. Far right window.]**

He holds up the note right in front of his face, then sheepishly peeks out from behind it. Adrien looks both hopeful and shy, something she's only seen a few times, and only once as Marinette, when he asked for her autograph. It's endearing to see such a bashful expression on the face that not twelve hours earlier was so easily maintaining a stunning level of polite composure and distance. She nods and inclines her head in that direction to get him headed that way. 

Once he disappears into the murk of his room Ladybug raises her legs over her head to touch the yo-yo's wire string, then uses the movement of dropping them back down to start the swinging needed to move. It's much more difficult to get momentum going after being a dead weight, than using the recoil of her weapon as lift, and she would like to avoid looking awkward in front of Adrien as much as possible. Heaven knows Marinette gets plenty of opportunity for that on her own.

Being a superhero tied to luck has its benefits though; she disengages her yo-yo from the mansion's rooftop railing and wall-jumps to the tiny faux-balcony outside the bathroom not a half-second before he appears beside it. He stretches upward to reach the stupidly high latch on the aggravatingly tall windowpane, then takes an unconscious step or two backward. His feet, in socks, slip around and he almost stumbles off of the short couple of steps adjacent to the huge bathtub, mouth falling open again. 

She supposes it's not every day a civilian teenaged boy gets a superheroine to stop outside his ridiculously lavish bathroom perched precariously on a tiny mostly-decorative railing, looking down at him with a certain piercing light in her eyes from several feet above. 

~ ~ ~

((... Ladybug is here. Ladybug is here and there isn't an akuma trying to use me as a bargaining chip. Ladybug is _here_. I invited her inside and she accepted and she's _right_. _Here._ ))

She looks every bit like someone painted her there on a canvas, with a backdrop of city lights and starry skies, bathed in the soft light from the empty bathroom he's standing in slack-jawed like a dope, all framed by the white windowsill. The girl he has admired, loved, supported, sacrificed himself to protect, and has been gently pushed away from for the past several years is standing above him like it's the most casual thing possible, and Adrien's mind is a whirlwind of conflicting thoughts, some sharp and painful and others a balm of warmth and affection.

Ladybug isn't sure how to interrupt his reverie so she crouches down and does the same thing as before - a fresh smile and a soft wave. 

"Salut Adrien."

Oh, right. Words. Close the mouth, swallow the lump in the throat, then reopen it and make words. He recovers some of the composure lost at her arrival and rests his arms on the tile in front of the window, trying to relax into a natural smile instead of his practiced version. That much he manages, but then his voice betrays his attempt at nonchalance, and what comes out is mostly a breathy sigh.

"H-hi, Ladybug."

The corners of her eyes crinkle a bit under the mask. She's watching him with such amusement plain on her face, but it's gentle; he doesn't feel teased or embarrassed by how obvious it is that she's entertained about the fact that he's so flustered. Those captivatingly bright blue eyes lift off of him to flit around the room, then over her shoulder back at the city's skyline behind her. The movement affords him the sight - familiar to him, he's stolen a glance so many times before - of her neck and jawline, and when she turns back to speak to him his face is just barely tinged with a flush.

"If I'm going to hang around for a little while, I should get down from here. The last thing you need is someone putting a picture of me crouched in your bathroom window all over the net."

"Oh. ... Oh! Right, yes. Sorry, here - please." Adrien drops his arms from the wall and stands back, offering a hand.

Ladybug smirks a bit and ignores the help, hopping down easily, feet making not a sound. Her eyes wander around another few seconds, then she stretches on her very tip-toes to shut the window behind her. 

"I nearly thought you weren't home. Came by this way a little while ago." She's padding slowly around the bathroom, a few red fingers trailing over the tile and chrome and clean white walls in what he thinks is quiet marveling, but may also be a deliberate thing to draw his gaze. If it is, it's working, and somewhere in the back of his mind he's a little disappointed that he's so easy to bait. Ladybug glances over her shoulder at him. 

"Paris is quiet tonight ... which I guess is good, but it makes for a short patrol."

He's still standing on the miniature staircase that leads to the bathtub, and realizes it only when she keeps walking, over the threshold into the front half of the bathroom. Adrien shoves his hands in his jeans pockets to stop himself from nervously messing up his hair and follows.

"My room gets a .. a lot of natural light, as you can imagine. I honestly get tired of it sometimes and prefer the dark. Dozed off after I got home earlier today and just didn't feel like turning on the lights after sundown. .. I wou- definitely would have waved the first time you passed by if I'd seen you there." 

".. Long day?" 

The question seems somehow more stringent, more inquisitive than merely curious small talk. Ladybug skims her fingertips over the enormous cabinetry situated beneath other bathroom window. It's taller than either of them, and she takes a half-step back to peer up and over it, then clears her throat and finally turns back to face him. Her face is light, a smile hiding at the corner of her mouth, but whatever she's thinking she doesn't voice. He isn't sure what to make of it, and can't meet her gaze for more than a few seconds. 

Adrien downcasts his eyes and doesn't immediately reply, choosing instead to pull open the sliding door separating them from his bedroom proper. He steps through and pauses, hand still on the edge, then leans his head back in to frown at her. 

"Sort of. The part I wanted to last longer, didn't. And I'm pretty sure I made a fool of myself." 

He starts to walk off into the dimness of his room, so she follows but hesitates at the threshold while her eyes try to adjust. 

"Adrien Agreste can make a fool of himself?"  
He can hear the gentle tease in her voice, a much milder version of the banter she sometimes lets herself engage in with Chat Noir. He smiles a little bitterly, knowing she can't see it, and sits down at the foot of his bed, watching her take short, deliberate steps into the seemingly empty air, one hand feeling about in front of her.  
"I'm not sure I knew that such a thing was possible. Or allowed."

Something in her words pricks a little too hard; it's nothing he wasn't already berating himself with, but she doesn't know that. Adrien swallows the temptation to react snappily to his wounded ego.

".. Sorry. Computer chair's right in front of you, or I can help you to the couch. I suppose to be a good host I _could_ even offer to turn on a light, but at the risk of getting the Lady of Paris mad at me, it's kind of cute watching her fumble around in the dark."

The hand groping about in the murk falls to her side, a self-conscious fist, and he chuckles. 

"I'd throw something at you .. but I don't know where anything is to throw. _Consider yourself lucky_ , monsieur." 

Ladybug takes a couple more steps and once she touches the back of the chair, spins it in place to set herself upon it backwards. She rests her toes on the floor - it's raised higher than her own desk chair at home - and lays her arms on its back, peering at where his voice seemed like it was coming from. Slowly the murky room comes into focus. 

He's cross-legged on his bed, leaning against the wall that doubles as a skateboard ramp. It's his hair she sees first, catching tiny glimmers of city light from the blank wall of windows thirty feet away. Adrien raises a hand to push through it, and just gazes at her. There's a dozen thoughts in his mind and at least as many emotions plainly vying for control of his face, and after a moment he realizes she's able to see again and is gazing right back and curiously watching the play of emotional turbulence.

The realization revives the shyness; Adrien draws up his knees in front of him, spaced a bit apart, and makes a visual obstacle between them out of his hands, fingers interlaced. There's a few long moments of quiet. No one else in the household is awake, or at least nowhere close by, and the only sounds are the faint hum of his computer tower and the distant city's movements. Loudly by contrast, Ladybug shuffles the chair over the area rug to be closer to the side of the bed and perches her toes on his bookcase next to the globe. 

"... Adrien?"

"Mmh?"

She doesn't reply, and eventually he can't bear the silence, looking up and over his knees and hands. Her normally brilliant blue eyes are almost silvery in the low light, pupils huge, and he can't help the way his heartbeat keeps picking up the pace.

"I- .. I mean.. You don't _have_ to talk to me, but you seem like you could use a listening ear."

So attentive, so concerned. Where does she find all this empathy? Why does Ladybug care about him? His heart thumps in his chest and he thinks about telling her everything then and there. But he's far too accustomed to respecting the distance she wants to maintain, even when it makes his heart ache.

"... If I say nothing is wrong, are you going to leave?"

"Wh- no? No. Not unless you.. you want me to?" She shifts in his chair, one of her feet wiggling with a bit of anxiousness. "But I don't like liars. If you don't want to talk about what's bothering you, I just won't press it."

It takes him a solid minute to mull that over. He could decline, pretend his problems didn't exist, like always. Defer. She'd said she wouldn't leave, like his father always did on the rare occasions he used to try and talk to him for what might have passed for "fatherly advice". They could .. watch tv, or a movie, or look at something on his computer, or .. ..? It occurs to him that he's never had a girl, never mind a _Ladybug_ , alone with him in his room before. Adrien has been raised and prepared for many a social situation, but not this. Why had he invited her in?? What did he think was going to happen?

... Shit. What did _she_ think was going to happen?!

"I'm an idiot." He slides slowly to his left and presses the heel of his palms into his eyes, shifting to his back. His legs uncross and he dangles them off the foot of the bed. "It's - that's pretty much all there is to say about it."

"So ... You're an idiot, or so you say, because you made a fool of yourself."

Adrien groans softly, a noncommittal noise of frustration. She gave him the option to move the topic somewhere else, so why hadn't he used it?

"And .. it was in front of someone important - or maybe, important to you - otherwise you wouldn't care. So-o-o ..."

The word drags out far too long. He turns his head to look at her with half a pout, a little annoyed by her tone, as though he's _such_ an easy book to read. Her head is laying on her arms draped over the back of the chair, and she's moved her feet to the bedframe. 

"So," she continues once he's reestablishing sulky eye contact, "you . . . I'm going to guess that you committed a faux pas at a strategic business meeting. Maybe with a prospective partner? A CEO of a lesser fashion line that was considering a merger toward becoming a Gabriel outlet?"

Now the prick of her teases hurts. Indignance and insult flare brightly on his tongue. It shows on his face as he sits up and moves to face her and she flinches, sitting up straighter on the desk chair.

"I _know_ how to act at business dinners, Ladybug! I've been taught thoroughly when to look down my nose at someone, and how to do _just_ the right amount of ego-kissing and conversational groveling, depending on if I'm being shown to Armani versus introduced to de la Renta before his last show, or how to shut up and just look pretty and dumb in the background with a glass of wine while my father is discussing ideas with Udeshi, because that's all he thinks I'm good for."

He exhales through his teeth and a clenched jaw, and when Ladybug tries to raise a hand out to him in apology he brushes it aside and carries on with his venting, staring at the carpet he can see between her ankles as though trying to set it aflame with his self-pity.

"What I _don't_ know how to do is have lunch, with a _friend_! Because, haha, no one teaches you that when you're homeschooled and then on a leash for the rest of your life! You're right, I'm not allowed! That's the joke, isn't it? I was barely allowed to go to school! I can count the number of friends I have on a single hand! All I wanted to do was eat LUNCH, with a FRIEND. A friend that I've finally gotten the courage to engage on her own ground, where she's comfortable and sunny and can talk to me because everything's familiar and safe and I can get down from the pedestal I sit on without her running for the hills because I'm "too famous". I've spent the past couple years getting shoved away by y- by the _one person_ I ever wanted to love, so I slowly hurt myself cutting away the ache and longing a heartstring at a time, and then _FINALLY_ the goddamned stars align and I have that fabled thing other people have told me so much about! Some free time! And I go see her! And it's great, it's honestly GREAT! She's overwhelmed but adorable and then I got her talking and things are GREAT, and then I fucked everything up by being every _bit_ the impersonal fashion puppet son my father has trained me to be. I bet he'd be proud I let her down with such a show of habitual polite assholery! _'Good, good, more focus on your work and your studies, you must not get distracted.'_ GREAT!"

He doesn't realize his hands are trembling, clenched and messing up the bedclothes, or that there are hot tears standing in his eyes until he blinks them away, because suddenly Ladybug has abandoned his computer chair. She's standing in front of him against the edge of the bed, one knee upon the coverlet beside his legs, one of her hands gently on his right shoulder to get his attention. A few tears track down his cheeks and he watches her eyes follow them - then both of her hands are softly cupping his face and a bunch of things happen simultaneously. 

His eyes go wide at the gentleness in her touch. She mournfully murmurs his name _("Adrien... it's okay. I'm sorry, it's okay.")_ but that alone is enough to make his unconditional love surge immediately back to the forefront. Adrien's hands cover her own for a quick second or two, then find their way to a hip and to her forearm. It isn't just the hint of a tug and a squeeze from him, nor her weight unsteadily balanced on one foot, that brings their faces so close together, but all at once there is a kiss happening.

Adrien is aware somewhere in the back of his mind that he's going to feel like the scum of the earth later on for several reasons, but for the moment there is only Ladybug. The softness of Ladybug's lips against his own, something he's literally and figuratively speculated on and fantasized about. Ladybug's hands clutching at his jawline and at the fabric on his shoulder's sleeve as she stands above him. He relaxes into her touch somewhat and scoots a bit further to the side of the bed. To her. One of his hands kneads the polkadotted hip it's clutching, and his other smooths a line up her arm to grip her elbow.

From deep in his chest bubbles up a perplexed but pleased groan. He isn't directing this at all, letting himself get almost leaned back to the bedspread before she wobbles, straightens up, and brings him along. She's made of strength and her eyes are squished closed, but her eyebrows beneath the spotted domino mask are lines of worry and she's mouthing and whispering apologies for riling him against his lips whenever she pauses for breath.

~ ~ ~

Several minutes pass before she stands upright again, both feet replanted on the floor, and all he can do is stare, mouth slightly agape with lips and cheeks and neck flushed with desire. His face is an unfairly beautiful hot mess, reading of _**want**_ and _more, please **more**_ , of adoration and love as a headline, underlined with a dose of confusion, highlighted with trust in spite of the rest.

Ladybug looks down at this too-handsome boy, a waiting and plainly willing lump of putty at her fingertips.  
Literally at her fingertips.  
She gently toys with his lower lip, tongue flickering over her own, and his only response is to gently press both lips against the pad of her thumb. He doesn't even blink at her, clearly thinking of nothing but what she might do next, and the jolting electric thrill of meeting in a kiss is beginning to fade as her brain reboots.

She just ravished Adrien Agreste's mouth with her own. Oh no. Oh no oh no no -yes-, but no, oh no no --

"I- I'm, I'm sorry I- "

"Mmmhh?" His eyes refocus, just a little, and his mouth tries to follow her hand as she extracts herself from the lazy embrace he's got her in.

God _damnit_ he's gorgeous, this is not helpful, not helpful, why did I - oh my god - no -

"Adrien I can't- I'm sorry I can't- I shouldn't-"

She tries to look anywhere but him when he finds his voice, but it's deep and breathy and rumbly on the consonants in a way that reminds her body heavily of the previous night.

"Ladybug.. please, don't _ever_ apologize for kissing me when you feel like doing it."

Her heart quails and a delicious shudder makes her spine tremble but she dares another look and immediately regrets the decision. Somewhat. With half-lidded eyes and tongue running over his teeth this boy just upgraded himself from "willing lump of putty" to "presenting himself on a platter on the bed for her to devour". With the utmost effort of will she can muster Ladybug takes half a step back, dislodging herself from his arms while chewing on her lower lip just to have a different sensation to keep her grounded.

"I- No, Adrien, I can't. I can't do this okay, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have- I can't do this as Ladybug."

He stills around her, expression dissolving from "made of lust" to "realizing where this is going".

"Ah ... I .. It's all right. I should have .. known, I guess." He can't meet her eyes anymore, and turns his face away from the window, hiding his face in the shadows. 

"No, I-! It's not _you_ , okay? God, it's not, I just- Ladybug needs to be careful and-"

"I get it. Neither of us can be publically in love. Haha. I'll .. forget it happened, okay?"

"Adrien, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done... I'm- I need to go."

He doesn't reply, but draws back his legs from the side of his bed and turns away from her.

"... Someday. When Papillon is gone, Adrien."

~ ~ ~

Her footsteps stumble back through his bedroom. He listens to the sound of his bathroom door sliding open, then closed, and the far bathroom window clicking open and then shut a bit too loudly.

After fifteen minutes of silence in the overbearingly empty room, Plagg emerges from his hiding place among the bookshelves on the second story and floats down to gently pat the boy's hair.

"She's gone now, kid. I, uh. ... Sorry, little kitten. She'll come back. .. Eventually."

Adrien says nothing, but shifts minutely away from his kwami. The blanket is wet with his silent stream of tears already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, I frustrated myself too.  
> Comments, questions, jumbles of incoherent screams? I like them here but I'm also on tumblr.  
> gigglesnorts.tumblr.com/ask B)


	6. the thirst is real

July turns to August. Midsummer has passed but the weather seems insistent on a last heatwave hurrah before letting autumn approach, and the Dupain-Cheng household is a sauna.

Marinette has been burying herself in her designs, a light blue apron edged in black waiting for embroidered detail on the pockets having become her pet project focus. Besides that she managed to slip in time between her work shifts and other concepts to make a halter bikini for Alya's birthday, colored with golds and oranges, trimmed in a deep red that complimented her hair and warm skin tone. 

Despite pestering from both her parents to take a day off, and her kwami inquiring even more frequently about whether or not she was all right after leaving Adrien's home, she'd insisted she was "fine", putting up the most convincing efforts of busy-bee designer for Alya on the occasions her bestie had dropped by unannounced. If her friend caught wind that Marinette was conflicted about having serious feelings for another person that wasn't Adrien, the fiery-headed girl reporter wouldn't rest until she had wheedled and whined and demanded and perhaps extorted all the details from her -- details that would be really difficult to divulge without lining herself up as the next cover story of the Ladyblog, even if mercifully listed as an anonymous source.

"Knowledge is dangerous."  
Tikki had instilled that into her from literally their first meeting.  
"No one can know the truth of who you are, and you should keep your distance from those you care about when you're Ladybug. People with darkness in their hearts will be looking for your weaknesses, and you don't want to make anyone a target."

She _knew_ that, and had tried to remind Chat Noir of the seriousness of it, and had given in anyway after their talk and closeness, with a lack of sleep inhibiting her sense of reason.  
She _knew_ that, and had buckled under the visceral need to console Adrien when his temper snapped (because of a joke that had sounded much more clever in her head) and he'd let down his façade. 

The reason why her brain had decided that to literally "kiss it and make it better" was the only viable, reasonable form of consolation at the time, she had been unable to fathom in the weeks since. Marinette had soon resolved that under no circumstances (which didn't involve Papillon's interference) was she allowed to enter Adrien Agreste's room as Ladybug. The lust-addled stare he'd directed at her while licking his teeth had been _unholy_ , and there wasn't any reason for her to believe she could resist it twice. Dreams, both awake and asleep, had seen to that. Her tongue had gotten a delicious sip of Adrien for the first time but it had only inflamed her thirst for a _drink_ , and she cannot afford to ... ahem, _drink_ to satiety right now.

Marinette is thirsty. Alya could never know, despite how much the teenager wanted to gush about such juicy sin taking place on the edge of the boy's bed frame. 

After getting home that night, anxious and terrified and embarrassed and apologizing to her kwami for making the little red spirit bear witness to all of her hormonal awkwardness, Marinette had sobbed into her pillows for about an hour. Despite feeling as though she'd broken the hearts of both the young men she was attracted to because of her decision to keep her distance, Tikki had calmly asserted that emotional tension (and plenty other more **passionate** types of tensions) were historically very common in the relationships of Ladybug and Chat Noir, both with and without the superheroic guises. However, much to the girl's relief, she'd gone on to explain that regardless of whatever sort of struggles they created between each other, the pair were exceedingly difficult to keep apart for long. Creation and destruction exist to complement each other, and so too do the two superheroes of Paris.

With unabashed love for Marinette in her big eyes, Tikki had hugged the girl's cheek as best she'd been able, tiny feet pedaling her charge into sitting upright and out of her pillow.  
"Chat Noir loves you, and Chat Noir loves Ladybug, and Adrien sure seems like he's open to the idea of both, Marinette. Things will be okay, but they'll be okay much more quickly and much less painfully if you figure out how to _talk_ things through ... instead of just kissing."

Marinette pushes away from her desk and her sewing machine and her thoughts, groaning as she stretches overhead while leaning back in her chair. The skies had been threatening a late summer storm for half a week already, and it's felt more oppressively humid each day. Every window in her room is open and there's a box fan on her chaise lounge moving the air around, but it's heavy, swampy air. 

She's sweating and her shirt sticks uncomfortably to her rib cage. Her red water bottle is nearly empty - a liter or more every day at her mother's watchful insistence. With a sigh, she goes up to the balcony above to catch a better breeze and take a break from restitching a sundress hem, thankful the sun has begun to set, with the quiet promise of thunder far in the distance. 

Tikki watches the girl with a concerned frown from the beneath the pane of the trapdoor.

~ ~ ~ 

Adrien stares at his bedroom ceiling, limbs sprawled carelessly across his white leather couch. The Agreste mansion is, of course, perfectly air-conditioned. 

There is a frown on his face, but it's because that's largely been the way his face has existed in recent weeks. He feels a hollowness now that he hadn't known since his mother's ... absence, but even that felt different, much more tinged with sadness and abject loss. Since kissing - or rather, being kissed thoroughly **by** Ladybug, he had been alternating between distinct flavors of self-pity, self-loathing, and an overwhelming apathy toward everything else. 

Only his desire to avoid stiffly receiving a lecture in person from his father kept him working at the bare minimum of effort with his instructors and the constant dealings with fussy photographers.

They were the worst part. His fencing, piano, Chinese, karate lessons - all of those he was well accustomed to absorbing and then executing as requested without caring overly much about the quality of his performance. But the photographers, especially the more artistic or poetic types, were simply horrible. He smiled plenty, adequately pretty for the newer, less experienced ones, but today for a new line of swimming trunks he had been practically begged for "more emotion, please, _anything_! You're killing me here handsome. You need to SELL the brand! Where is your usual enthusiasm, dear Adrien?!"

He'd managed to shake off his uncaring torpor for only a few minutes at a time, until the next bit of pleading and cajoling started and he had become uncharacteristically sullen. Finally he had gotten an unintended tip from Plagg during the ten-minute break he'd successfully argued for, feigning a headache as the cause of his reticence. 

Between mouthfuls of camembert and crackers, the black cat spirit had quipped something snarky and sarcastic about how "they should see your face when you wake up from ~Ladybug dreams~. Lots of _emotion_ then! Ha, haha!" Adrien had flushed and chucked the cracker box at his kwami, who only dodged and laughed again. Sometimes Plagg was the worst kind of roommate.

With those words rolling around his head, Adrien had let himself daydream - just enough to be interested but not cause any visible _outward awkwardness_ \- about Ladybug's visit. Black spots on curvaceous red. Dark hair that he could tangle his fingers in. Bright blue eyes. The photographer ate it up, cooing about "fire and vigor and a dark hunger, oh Adrien baby, you're going to leap off the page of the magazine and eat their hearts, GOOD! Good!!" He had zoned out to the sound of continuous camera shutter snaps, flexing and stretching and lazing on a reclining patio chair as instructed.

Reduced to fantasizing while working. Wonderful. And about Ladybug, who he had been _trying_ to let go, or at least not feel so .. caught up with. He scowls at his ceiling. At himself.

((Fantastic job, Adrien. What a winner you are. Marinette would surely be ecstatic for you, getting your mouth ravished by the woman of your dreams not a full day later than when you ravished hers. Amazing self-control you've got there. You sure do deserve the support and affection she'd given you despite being smart enough to know she had to shut down your advances. Smarter than you.))

The guilt eats at him, gnawing on his ribs like an empty stomach's churning ache. The burden of hiding the truth from both of the two women he's interested in feels like a betrayal, and Plagg has done nothing to assuage his fears that if Ladybug ever finds out, she'd be disgusted with him for what feels like such a disrespectful level of duplicity. Never mind that he simply isn't the flawless poster boy everyone thinks he is. That's an entirely separate type of having two dualities to live.

"You're thinking too much. I told you she'll come back someday."  
"Just stop worrying about it, kid. It's really not the huge problem you think it is."  
"Chat Noir and Ladybug are a team. Do you keep _choosing_ to forget that? You should listen to me sometimes, you know? Maybe you'll feel better if you share my cheese, hmm?"

Adrien glances at his watch, anxious for twilight to fall so he can go on patrol. Despite his persistently terrible mood and the unpleasant humid weather, leaping around Paris as his alter-ego gives him something different to focus on, an outlet to vent his frustrations. Unmasked, masked in a different way. Able to quip and sass and be physically active without someone breathing down his neck on his form.

It's not like he can consult Nino about any of this, although he's considered it more than once. 

_"Hey man - so uh .. I want to get to know Marinette better so I used the only chance I had to take her out to lunch, but I kind of turned into a bourgeoisie jerk, and also I've kissed her already but she doesn't technically_ know _that and I can't tell if it would be better or worse to let her in on that little tidbit ..."_

True to his best-friend status, Nino would probably make a legitimate attempt at understanding what the hell Adrien was going through, and give him honest and likely unhelpful advice. But, Nino is thoroughly beholden to Alya despite being his closest friend, and Alya is a shrewd investigator of a woman. Nino withholds nothing from Alya - and in fairness, probably couldn't even if he wanted to - and if she got even a whiff of the idea that he'd unwittingly betrayed Marinette's trust (even though nothing _Adrien and Marinette_ had done counted for that), the spitfire girl would probably castrate him for good measure on **top** of a colorfully protective chastisement regarding his behavior. He'd kept in contact with Nino through texts about as much as he ever had, so that he wouldn't get suspicious of anything that would make him show up in person to check on him.

Or well ... stubbornly _try_ to check up on him, since his father steadfastly refused to lift the Nino-ban.

Adrien rolls moodily onto his side, sending a grumbling Plagg tumbling into the air from where he'd been curled up on the boy's chest. A couple more hours. Hopefully there will be something interesting tonight.

~ ~ ~

"Landlords that don't listen to their tenants don't deserve any respect! I am **FanFemme** and I will blow them down! I'll blow all of you away!"

The akuma laughs, high pitched and manic with her newly-granted sense of power, fluttering a large folding fan in front of her face. Chat Noir watches from a nearby roof for a moment as the tainted woman floats through the street below, using the fan to sweep people and things aside with abnormally powerful gusts of wind. With her getup resembling little more than an edgy redesign of a form-fitting sports bra, jogging shorts, and sweatbands on the wrists and head, he's never before seen an akuma with such little clothing on before. 

"Were you planning on looking at her butt all night Chat Noir, or are you going to take action sometime today?"

Chat starts a bit at Ladybug's voice behind him - he hadn't heard her approach this time. He flicks a habitual smile at her over his shoulder, but it fades quickly when he turns back to the havoc below.

"I don't look at anyone's backside but yours, my Lady. ... Sometimes mine."

There's a pause, just long enough that he wonders (as he always does, ready to apologize or give back her space) if he toed too far over a line. When he turns around on the spot to fully look at her, he has only a split second's time to see her biting her lower lip. It's quickly released, reddened, and she changes her expression to one of challenge in a heartbeat.

"Like what you see then?" Ladybug steps past him to the edge of the roof, throws out her yo-yo to snag on the building across the street, and glances back at him for half a second before leaping into the stuffy air. He's rattled, staring after her in blatant and piqued confusion. Did- did she just _flirt_ with him? Shaking himself out of the daze and trying desperately not to think of her on his bed, he extends his baton to jump after her. Now is not the time to daydream.

"Hey! Why don't you point your fan at me instead? It's hot out tonight, huh? I bet it would feel nice!" 

Chat lands in a crouch beside his Lady as she taunts the akuma, baton at the ready, Ladybug swinging her yo-yo. FanFemme twirls in place, then gasps overdramatically, fan over her face for a second, then folded and pointing at the two heroes.

"How can you wear such clingy skintight suits?? There's no air conditioning out here! Just like there isn't in my apartment complex!!" She punctuates her yelling by swinging the fan to her side, and a few cars slam into the wall of the buildings they're parked next to. "Take them off! Take off your suits! Take them off and surrender your Miraculous Stones! I promise you it'll feel a lot better then!"

"Take them off, eh?" Chat glances to his partner, unable to stop his cheesy grin.

"Hey hey hey - don't you get any ideas! It's stuck on. Remember Lady WiFi? Kind of wish it wasn't though, you wouldn't believe how sweaty I am right now in this weather." She flicks her eyes to Chat, sees his stupidly bright-white smile, and shoves his shoulder with a laugh. It's hard to tell in the low light of the alleyway, but Ladybug might be blushing under the edges of her mask. "Cut it out! Even if I .. you know, wanted to, I can't!"

"Well that's a shame, my Ladybug. Mine has **zippers** , you know~?"

It's Ladybug's turn to go momentarily still in stunned curiosity as the other half of their team runs and leaps forward to engage the akuma. ((It's true, oh my god. He uses his pockets all the time. Is he talking about the- the bell zipper though?! That _works??_ OH MY GOD--)) Her very interesting train of thought gets derailed as the black-suited boy goes tumbling backward over her head, only to slam roughly into the wall behind them. The akuma is bearing down on her, laughing behind the wooden fan again, so she cartwheels backward to collect Chat from the crumpled heap of crates and trash bins he's in.

"Chat Noir! Are you all right?"

"Yeah I'm -" a pause, as he somersaults back to his feet, brushing off debris," - fine. But it seems this overheated _fan_ isn't just _full of hot air_."

"UGHHH, _CHAT_. You can't just - - _not?_ \- for one night??"

"Sorry, not sorry. I could probably _blow_ through some puns in my sleep."

A low crackling of distant thunder rolls through the city, echoing a little in the alley they're cornered in. Ladybug swivels back to face FanFemme with her yo-yo in a wind-up pitch, muttering under her breath.

"Drop the punny stuff or I'll **put** you to sleep, alley cat."

"Oh~? ... A .. _little death_ by my Lady's hands? I think I could die happily after that."

Halfway through slinging her yo-yo at the akuma, Ladybug splutters and coughs. "Wh- what?!" 

The arc goes wide from its intended target of a painful head shot, but their enemy goes on the defensive anyway, yelling something about the injustice of her lack of air conditioning that neither superhero is currently listening to. The fan closes to clash with jabs of Chat's baton-turned-sword. His eyes are on the akuma but the cheshire grin is lingering and he can feel Ladybug's gaze on his side as he uses years of fencing practice to drive the akuma back into the main street. 

"I-I said no more puns! That better have been a pun! Right?! That was a _joke_ , like everything else?"

With a lunge and a shove, the akumatized woman is forced to retreat, and despite the power granted to her by Papillon, looks wearied, rubbing the shoulder of her dominant arm. She leans against an overturned delivery truck and tiredly fans herself with her off-hand. The glowing hologram of the archvillain's symbol hums into being in front of her face, but after a short moment, FanFemme angrily waves her arm in front of her face, disrupting the image and voice in her head.

"Who cares if you take away my power? This is exhausting! Wha- yes it _IS_ exhausting!! When's the last time you faced them yourself?! I just wanted the A/C to be working when I got back from my jogging. I'm not built for this supervillain crap!"

"It was a pun, yes .. but it's the truth as well. Are you really surprised?" Chat shrugs loosely at his partner with a wink, arms on the staff-baton resting on his well-muscled shoulders. Ladybug looks flushed and shaken, biting her lower lip again but uncertainly, glancing between the yo-yo in her hands and the boy strutting in front of her. Chat's ego deflates after a few seconds at her hesitation, feline ears drooping. He swings the baton down to size and sets it at the small of his back, moving to grab her by the shoulders.

"Hey. Hey .. I'm sorry, okay? I say a lot of stupid things. I have for a while, you know? I thought you _knew_ that - I-- ... I didn't mean to be creepy. This is me, Chat Noir, shutting up now."

The spotted hero's eyes flit over the cat's forearms, shoulders, chest, linger at the bell under his chin, glance further south before snapping quickly back up to his eyes - his half-abashed, half keenly interested neon green eyes, taking in every detail of the particularly intriguing _mood_ she's letting heat her through the longer she stands here. Those eyes watch, squinting a little as she swallows to wet her throat, and licks her lips to wet those too. Her voice is soft and thoughtful and Chat Noir positively reels with déjà vu at the tone, pitched low and quiet, a sentence obviously meant only for him.

"I .. I do know, minou. I've known."

Ladybug draws herself back up, willing and smoothing away the remnants of titillated teenage hormones back under the determination and responsibility of superherodom. She starts striding out of the alley toward the akuma (monologuing complaints about the awful humidity all the while). Chat follows and matches her stride, mildly confused but letting the embarrassment slide away when she smiles at him sidelong.

"I don't think you're creepy, Chat Noir. I just don't think you've ever managed to pun so ... _explicitly_ before. It's an interesting thought, isn't it."

The ears atop Chat Noir's head perk back up in distinct interest.  
Ladybug thinks - ???? - is an interesting thought.  
There are a lot of ways to be ... _killed_ by a "little death".  
Therefore, Ladybug thinks a lot of ... _things_ ... are interesting thoughts?!  
His tail gives away his carefully-composed expression of focus, swishing energetically behind him in wide sweeps.

FanFemme groans loudly as the pair approach, reluctantly brandishing her folding fan. Another rumble of thunder sounds off above them, loud and menacing.

"Can't you two just give me the Miraculous stones so we're DONE and I can go force my landlord to hire a mechanic to fix the air conditioning?? It's too damn _hooooot_. I don't want to fight anymore. I'm going to suffocate in this soupy air! It's _hot_ and I'm _thirsty_ and Papillon talks too much."

"Sorry, FanFemme. Our Miraculous aren't your bargaining chips - and Papillon, if you can hear me, they aren't yours either, nor are the citizens of Paris! --- _LUCKY CHARM!_ "

A flash of light, and into the superheroine's hand drops a large polkadotted water bottle. Ladybug puts her other hand on her hip and levels a caring smile at the overwhelmed jogger. Chat extends his baton and rests his hands and chin on it, sensing keenly that his role as damage-dealing distraction is over for the night.

"Look, I'll level with you. My house is **old**. Really old! It doesn't even _have_ air conditioning, and there are industrial-sized _ovens_ a few stories below mine." The black cat's tail abruptly comes to a halt, and he turns himself from his thoughts and the akuma to carefully watching the side of Ladybug's face. "So trust me, I truly do understand your frustrations about the weather. This suit _is_ too clingy, I _will_ feel a lot better once I'm not wearing it, and frankly, I'm tired of fighting too."

Ladybug pauses in her speech, feeling Chat's blatant stare, but doesn't look his way. The pink outline of a butterfly buzzes back into view in front of FanFemme's face, turning almost red in anger. Whatever the woman is hearing, it isn't pleasant. Her frown deepens and again she swats the magic link away, staring angrily at the condensation dripping down the sides of the bottle.

"But if you're tired too, we have to do this on equal footing. I know he's yelling, trying to intimidate you and control you through manipulation and promises. Give him the best mental middle finger you can on my behalf, give Chat Noir your fan, and I'll give you the water bottle for a minute before I set everything right again."

"... Fine! Here. This guy is an asshole. Yes -you-, Papillon! My name is _Camille_!" Chat snaps out of his thoughts just in time to snatch the tossed fan out of the air. Ladybug beams and gladly hands over the cold water bottle to the akumatized woman, who promptly unscrews the cap and tips the container to her lips, chugging at least a half-liter before coming up for air.

Chat snaps open the fan with a flick of the wrist and starts to fan himself with a soft smile - then thinks better of it and directs at his partner instead, swathing her in large, gentle breezes from head to toe. She looks at him then, flicking her eyes over him in several places before smirking wryly as her earrings beep the first warning. 

"A lady could get used to having a . . . _fan boy_."

His jaw drops. He nearly drops the fan as his arms fall to his sides. 

Camille polishes off the water bottle and thrusts it back at the heroine, clapping her hands over her ears, trying to shut out the seething rage Papillon is venting inside her head. Ladybug easily plucks the fan out of Chat's dangling hand, then snaps it over her knee and purifies the black butterfly that emerges, a victorious little grin on her face the entire time.

**_"MIRACULOUS LADYBUG!!"_ **

~ ~ ~

With a promise from Camille to talk _politely_ to her landlord in the morning about getting the building's air conditioning working again, the two super-powered teens make their exit back onto the roof they first started out on. Ladybug seems rather pleased with herself, having successfully talked down an akumatized person for the first time rather than having to outwit or physically defeat and pin them in place. She fistbumps Chat's shoulder (bien joué!) since he's still distracted, but when she turns to leave his gloved hand reaches for her wrist and gently pulls her back.

The various things they said this evening sift through both of their minds, and at the second beep of her earrings, both teens try to talk at once, heartbeats starting to race in awareness of the short timeframe they have.

"Chaton, you know that I-"  
"That was a _masterful_ pun."

Ladybug's face changes from stilled concern to a chuckling eye roll, and she takes back her wrist but doesn't move away. 

"Of course that's what you wanted to say."

"Mmh. Credit where credit's due my Lady, but," he takes a half-step closer, shifting his weight thoroughly into her personal space like he's done only a few times before, "you know that I already _am_ your 'fan boy', right?"

"I don't.. You think-" All at once the lump in her throat is back, and she swallows her words, at eye level with his mouth before directing her eyes over his shoulder to watch lightning crack in the distance. The first few droplets of rain begin to fall on their city, and the world smells of dust and petrichor and hot pavement.

"I am _yours_ , Ladybug. I have been, and will be, and couldn't stop being yours if I tried. If you want me to stop alluding it to it with puns and innuendo, I can, if .. if you don't want to hear it. But I have _been_ yours, for so long. Since the first day. And - and if you might feel the same, then -" 

His voice doesn't quite crack, but it wobbles with the effort of direct admission. Neither Chat Noir nor Adrien Agreste are accustomed to speaking openly about personal and intimate topics, and suddenly he feels incredibly vulnerable. She already pulled away, so he keeps his hands rigidly at his sides, refusing to make the situation any more uncomfortable than it's become. 

Thunder suddenly booms overhead, making them both jump and wince at the volume; the third beep is only barely registered by Marinette's ears. A breath later the skies open, unleashing all the rain that had been expected for nearly four days in a torrential downpour. The heroes are soaked through their already skintight suits in a matter of seconds and move to stand against the leeward side of a roof-access stairwell, although it doesn't help much.

She tries to say something but can't even hear herself, so Ladybug places her hands on Chat's head to pull him down to her level, one on his chin and one at the nape of his neck, forehead resting in his wet hair, and speaks directly into his real ear.

"It took me a long time to realize, okay? You _have_ been there, my rock-steady supporter and number-one fan since day one. And I don't want you to think I don't care about you, or don't care about the way you feel, mon chaton. I- I _want_ to explore.. things.. explore us .. with you. I've known how you feel for a while, but we can't- I can't do.. that. I can't do _this_ as Ladybug, not while Papillon is taking advantage of someone every other day!! I hate watching him turn people against each other. ... I hate seeing him take advantage of **you**."

Her grip tightens nervously on his neck, in a sensitive spot that sends a thrill down his arms and spine to settle in his gut. He tries to turn his head and body but she shakes her head against his hair with a sniffle, and for a few long seconds he just stares into the grey haze of falling rain, wanting nothing more than to turn and kiss her, to find the fire and mind-erasing comfort her lips and tongue provided them both. The stones in her ears beep as loudly as they can over the downpour and bellowing thunder that's shaking the buildings.

"Someday, all right? I promise, someday, when Papillon is gone, I will give you the love and affection and support you deserve, minou, but I can't- right now, I just can't-"

She lets him go and instantly he reaches for her, but she skips backward, trying to smile. If she's crying, the rain slicking over her face and body is a perfect disguise. She's tugging on her ponytail - no, her ear, the earring - and saying something, but he doesn't catch it until she swiftly darts in to give him a chaste kiss on the cheek.

"I have to go."

Chat Noir watches hollowly as she ducks around the corner, yo-yo at the ready. He slumps against the wall and leans his head back into the bricks, and stays there for what feels like at least an hour, until all the yearning heat that had been simmering in his chest and lower abdomen have long since dissipated under the onslaught of the summer storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've gradually come to realize that this fic is accruing nods and hints to all of my favorite headcanons and fancomics and other fanfics and tumblr shitposts.  
> What can you do. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	7. Undisclosed Desires

Chat Noir scrambles over the highest rooftops in Paris after making his patrol, his supernatural agility and years of parkour and feline habits keeping him ducked into the shadows. It's an hour past dusk on the last day of August and the city is settling down to sleep, but there's a young girl he's been thinking about revisiting and he's pretty sure she won't be turning in just yet. This time he makes certain to circle the building twice, eyes and ears checking near and far for anyone that might be watching, but thankfully it's clear - he'll be able to assure her there is no one furtively following him for tabloid story potential.

The catsuited boy quickly and effectively sneaks up the side of the building above the residential door, glancing into the Dupain-Chengs' kitchen window for a half-second as he passes it - no one in it. A few more short and nimble jumps bring him to the balcony, peeking past the rose planter with feet braced on the slanted roof tiles. 

"Bonsoir Princes-" Chat gets instantly greeted by a sugar cookie to the face, right between the eyes. He flinches and hastily shuffles his grip on the rail in order to snatch at the sweet before it hits the ground, crumbs scattering through his fingers. "- hey!" 

"Don't- !! ...... Don't _scare_ me like that you.. you stray!"

A book lays to one side on the chair, fallen from her lap when she pitched the snack toward the sudden noise. She looks flustered, eyes wide with an arm raised in an accusatory jab in the direction of his chest, but not _mad_ to see him. That alone softens the most painful knot of paranoid trepidation in his chest. He'd been trying to convince himself to visit for a few days before his stir-crazy loneliness had finally overridden the shameful longing he kept berating himself for when he woke up each morning - aching and sweating and sticky. 

In the recent weeks his dreams had been filled with imagery of dark pigtails, slim and toned arms, and bright blue eyes. Never was there context, or any scene or dialogue to speak of - just all the minute favorite details that both women he's interested in share. Once, they _both_ had been present, and he'd spent an hour under a cold shower after waking up, convinced that if there was a hell, he was going to it and both Ladybug and Marinette would be the ones delivering him there, in multiple pieces. Plagg had spent the first ten minutes cackling at him in perverse amusement, then the next 50 complaining through the door about his lack of a timely breakfast.

He blinks slowly at one of the owners of those blue eyes that drive him so wild and conjures a soft pout, nibbling on the cookie.

"I'm not a stray." 

She makes a face at him as though to contend that assertion but relaxes in her chair, collecting and closing her sketchbook. 

"I'm sure you tell that to all the girls you've visited at night over the years. _Miaou~miaou~, pet me~ pet me~, can I have a treat~?_ "

His snack consumed, he props his arms on the rail and fixes her with a neutral gaze, wondering what he'd ever done to insinuate that he visits half the teenage girls in Paris. 

"Hm. You do give me delicious treats, and oh I _do_ , I do so very much like your pets Marinette ... but I don't visit anyone else at their home. Not when nothing dangerous is going on. I'm not a backyard-wandering tom."

She stills under that neon pair of eyes, then fidgets and fiddles with the button on her book's clasp, tracing the edges of the heart shape with one finger.

"So? That just means you're _my_ stray, but you're still a stray alley cat. ... What are you doing here, chaton?"

"I just wanted to drop by to .. to talk. Like we used to." A twinge of guilt plucks at him at the possessive pronoun. It wasn't so many days back that he'd told Ladybug he was _hers_. Can he still be hers when he's on the terrace of a different person that he also wants very much to do _things_ with? Isn't it selfish, to want two people at one time? Marinette had told him it isn't, but it sure as hell feels like it.

"You mean .. before last time." Unconsciously she brings a hand up to rub at her neck. Oh. Right. He'd asked to kiss her goodnight, and had ended up exploring her jawline, nuzzling her ears, and mouthing at her neck and collarbones before remembering just in time that she probably wouldn't forgive him if he left the marks he'd so badly wanted to in the heat of the moment.

"I- ... Marinette, if you don't want me here because of it, because of -- what happened, I'll leave. I can leave .. "

The corners of her mouth pull this way and that, torn between a reproachful frown and a titillated shyness at the memory of his lips on her skin. She thinks of the kind lecture and advice her kwami had given her and makes a face, a wry smile with pinched brows. 

"No ... no, it's fine Chat Noir, I mean it's- it's not like I didn't **like** last time, haha! because -- _well, I did_ , but we - we shouldn't - you know, make it a habit." She coughs awkwardly, resolutely staring down at her knees. "Um. _Much_. I've, uh, wanted to talk to you too anyway."

He lets a sly smile play over his face at her rambling - rambling but not tongue-tied and stuttering, still such an improvement over seeing her as Adrien - and hops over the railing to join her properly on the balcony. With no indication that she's going to get up from her seat, he just slides down to sit where he is, legs crossed one over the other and hands folded in his lap.

"I liked it too, but I'll suppose I can try not to make it a habit." He can't keep a straight face though, and grins. " _Much_."

"Mm-hm. A perfectly behaving, innocent gentleman, that's you." Marinette doesn't see him wince at her choice of words, busy rolling her eyes at his apparent ego.

"... I _try_ to be a gentlecat, even if- when I mess up sometimes." His voice hitches with emphasis and the girl's eyes flash back down to Chat's, who clears his throat and looks away. It's hard to read his expression at times, with the way his tousled mop of blonde hair falls over his forehead, obscuring what little of his eyebrow movement the mask doesn't.

"Hey.." 

It takes him a good couple seconds to raise his eyes back to hers so she can parse the emotions he doesn't want to voice. His eyes read of apology and hesitation, and when he squints and grimaces from the effort of just making eye contact, guilt. Guilt? Because of what happened last time? It's not as though she hadn't consented, and she certainly hadn't asked or _wanted_ him to stop. She had been about to motion him over to sit next to her chair, noting in the back of her mind that maybe it was time to bring another one up here for guests to use; now she picks up the tin of cookies on the wall beside her instead and holds them out. 

"Sorry I threw it at you. Have another one."

His mouth is crimped to one side, looking like he's chewing on the inside of a cheek to hold his tongue, and she knows that look better than he thinks she should - Chat Noir messed up somewhere, sometime recently, and whatever it was is bothering him. If it were something small he'd just laugh it off. Chat Noir doesn't sweat the small stuff. But whatever's eating at him, apparently isn't small. She decides for the moment to leave well enough alone, giving him the chance to change the subject.

He spurs himself into motion when she gently shakes the container at him, rolling forward and crossing the balcony space in only a couple four-legged strides. After digging carefully in the tin for another treat, the cat rocks backward on his heels, then folds up his legs to sit at the foot of Marinette's chair.

"Well now ... talk like we used to, huh?" 

He looks up at her with an inquisitive eyebrow cocked just high enough for the mask to show it as he silently munches on the pastry, tail-tip wiggling with curiosity in front of his feet. 

"Guess there haven't been any nasty-level akuma lately? Nothing's been on the news at least." 

She scoots forward on the seat, crossing her own legs at the sling chair's edge, mirroring his dejected-looking slouching pose by resting her elbows on her knees. 

"Alya has been texting me constantly out of boredom. She promised to write LadyNoir fiction soon just to keep the blog going with some original content if nothing happens before school starts back up. I couldn't tell if she was serious, but I bet it would be a good read."  
~ ~ ~  
She's filling the awkward silence for him. Caught onto the fact that he wanted to talk, but didn't know about what, or if she would be okay with it, so she restarted it herself, bringing their .. relationship .. back to a place he knew how to approach. Trailed off by teasing him a little, on a topic he'd probably have something to comment on, so they could pick up at a comfortable spot. A _friendly_ spot. ((Because Marinette is a _friend_ , and she rejected you _because_ she cares about you,)) he reminds himself.

"There have been akuma this summer, but not many. Most are petty characters and were easy to defeat - seems pretty strange to go so long without a major threat though, doesn't it? As though Papillon's day job keeps him busy." 

Chat Noir tries to sound conversational about it, but it's another thing he's thought about when he can't sleep recently - on top of everything else. He's been kept too busy to socialize for essentially the entire summer break, with only the last few hours of each evening to himself and his ponderings - well, with Plagg as aloof, whiny company. The black cat spirit isn't much for stimulating conversation, even though it's the time of day he's most active. 

He hadn't even seen his father directly in about three weeks, receiving exactly one facetime call for an overly professional and succicint, typically Gabriel-Agreste-esque message of approval regarding that swim trunks photoshoot he'd berated himself for daydreaming in. The photographer had been right, frustratingly. The magazine the shoot was featured in had gotten a significant bump in its usual sales for the spring-summer quarter, with the swimwear line expected to follow suit when it went to market next month.

He'd paused to think, and glances up to realize Marinette's gently watching him with curious eyes, waiting for him to go on.

"There was one early last week - the night that storm finally broke." 

"Oh yeah? That can't have been fun. It was pouring until the next morning. I had stupidly left a window open that night." She frowns and glances down at the balcony floor as though scolding the mentioned window. This definitely felt like how most of their balcony visits went - she's well in the habit of pretending she knew nothing about the akuma she had defeated alongside him.

"Mhm, it uh, wasn't _fun_ , no. Although, it was defeated before the storm let loose. She was upset about not having air conditioning in the awful weather so Papillon gave her a little extra strength, and a magic folding fan. Like an airbender, yeah? She managed to blow me roughly into an alley once, but I shrugged off her power with my acute sense of _extremely amusing_ , witty humor-" 

"Ah ouais. _Extremely._ "

"- since this _fan_ was just full of hot _air_." 

He pauses with eyes closed, one hand on his chest, the other arm in the air for dramatic flourish, and peeks one eye at her with a grin.

"Oh my god, chaton." The resolute line of her brow means she's impressed and amused, surely.

"Good, no?"

"You are _such_ a dork. You shouldn't leave yourself open so much."

"I don't leave myself open!"

"Yes you do! You're distracted a lot, taking too much time thinking up James Bond one-liners to use instead of watching your enemies."

Chat Noir splutters for a moment, a little sulky that his moment to show off his pun pride has been tarnished by her worrying.

"Wh- how do you know? You aren't there! I do fine, Mari! The akuma didn't even hurt me - I've taken worse body blows in gym classes. The suit is a lot more resilient than you might think!"

"Well.. you know! You still take hits sometimes that you should dodge instead. You've been under several akumas' influence before... You need to be careful! I see stuff! On the news, and the Ladyblog, and - and she just made a Vine channel too, Alya did - sometimes she shows me stuff. Things that she doesn't post anywhere ..."

Marinette trails off, face reddened more by stubborn concern than any real anger. Chat lets his bluster drip away and reaches out to place a reassuring hand on her knee, hesitating when she continues in a softspoken mutter, frowning down at her lap.

"Like sometimes she gets _really_ clear pics or close up vids, of.. of when you intercept hits meant for Ladybug. Or, or when one of the akumatized people manages to use their magic abilities against you. She shows them to me, but then doesn't put them online. ... 'Cause Paris needs to see its heroes in good light."

Marinette won't meet his eyes, lips pursing in a defensive pout, so he places a palm on her knee and lets the warmth of it sink in as he simply listens attentively.

"I just .. want you to be more careful, you know? You can't help protect Paris or fight with Ladybug if you get knocked unconscious.. or get mind-controlled by the bad guy's thralls. And _I'd_ \-- I'd be so upset, if you really got hurt."

"... I understand, Princesse. I'll pay better attention from now on, so please don't worry. Don't worry over me."

~ ~ ~

After a long moment of solemn quiet, Marinette shivers and Chat Noir feels the shudder reach him through her leg. It's maybe an hour to midnight, probably less. He shifts a little closer to her chair, half-turning so that his arm and shoulder are making contact with her crossed legs. The chill of approaching autumn doesn't bother him, but whether or not she means to, he can feel the girl lean in to siphon his warmth.

"You should go get that red sweater you were wearing last time I dropped by. It looked warm."

Marinette meets his eyes when he glances up sideways at her and tries not to think about dragging him up onto the slingback chair to join her as a lap cat. A catsuited body-blanket. That would probably go .. awry, pretty quickly. Pleasantly awry.

"Maybe. Yeah."

".. or maybe I should go, so you can get some sleep? It's warmer indoors."

"It is, yes." He doesn't look like he wants to leave, bicep nudged up against her calves, and if she's done lying to herself about Chat Noir, she wants him to stay as well. She glances thoughtfully down to her left at the trapdoor leading to her bedroom. Tikki said they needed to talk things through, after all ...

"What I said last time is still true, you know." He frowns faintly, clearly trying to infer which thing she means. "What could happen if someone saw you coming to see me here."

"I don't-- Marinette I didn't come here tonight to _do_ anything with you. To you. Um." He grins but winces, raising a hand over his eyes to push the messy hair out of his face with a deep breath. "I'm not going to .. do anything you don't _want_ me to. And I mean it, I'm sorry about last time, if I overstepped your boundaries, because I wasn't thinking -"

"Chaton, I really only meant about the frequency. It used to be months between your visits. The more often you come over to see me, regardless of the reason, the more likely it becomes that someone will see a pattern in it." She can't help it now; she leans forward enough to run her fingers through his hair after his own, and he stiffens nervously at the pleasant shudder threatening to tickle his spine at the feel of her fingernails. 

"Is there anyone around?"

Chat Noir's more basal instincts pique in a matter of seconds. He swallows the sudden lump in his throat, mentally reprimanding himself because he doesn't _know_ if she's suggesting something, and twitches the cat ears around on either side of her hand even though he already knows there's no one within a block's distance. 

"No, no one is nearby. I did remember that from last time, that I shouldn't be seen. So I took extra care to stay hidden."

At that she leans back to uncross her legs, and fluidly rolls forward out of the seat in a practiced motion, albeit interrupted with an awkward hop-step to one side because there is a Chat in the way. She plucks her sketchbook out of the chair, and the box of sugar cookies from the floor, and shoves them under one arm so the other can heft up the hatch window.

"Come on then, just don't get your boots on my bedspread."

"You're going inside?"

"... _We're_ going inside," she deadpans to correct him, "unless you'd like to sit out here by yourself for the rest of the night?"

Beneath the cool exterior of his mask, which only shows his eyes widening a bit, jaw slack, the teenage boy is suddenly flush with heat shimmering under his skin. He hasn't been inside her room for years, not since they were practising Ultimate Mecha Strike III on her computer. And her parents were checking up on her then, offering snacks and sweets that Marinette refused. He tries to focus on the irony of that now as he gets fluidly to his feet, glancing one more time at Marinette to be certain she's sure he can go inside her room.

"Now or never, alley cat, if you please. I could hold this window open all night probably but I'm getting a cramp, you know?"

~ ~ ~

Chat hangs briefly onto the edge of the hatch until he can stretch far enough to get his boots onto the black railing of her bedframe. He crawls over her bed - messy and unmade, and immediately he hates how interested he is in how very much it smells like her to his heightened senses. Focus. 

The sheets are a dark wine-pink and she has a _huge cat pillow_ at the head of her bed, but FOCUS. Chat refuses to get his boots on her blanket or pillows, and drops over the railing as soon as he lets himself fall all the way through, instead of using the ladder. Standing back up and hoping that his claws didn't snag or tear anything on the way down, he immediately notes how packed the room is with clothing and accessory projects and busts and mannequin heads and dress forms. Most are done or nearly done, but a handful are still plainly in the works. 

Marinette clambers stiffly down the ladder, one arm still full, and catches his attention with the small noise of setting the items down on her desk. She sidesteps around him as though he's simply the newest roadblock she's placed there, fussing at this shirt and that lapel on a jacket, then fingering the half-done "A.A." embroidery on the pocket of a blue apron. 

"Marinette -- mon dieu. How long have you been working on all of this? Are these commissions? You have enough here to practically furnish a small store."

"Ha! No. Well, a couple pieces are gifts, sort of ... but most of it's just. Summer practice. I guess. Once this last school year is done I'm not sure what I'll be doing, so I started to just pump out whatever ideas I came up with to show any professionals I might get lucky enough to be introduced to somehow." 

She glances up at him, bemused at his reaction to what she feels is mostly unfinished clutter. His hands are on his hips as he looks appraisingly and at length at each article of clothing, each accessory on a blank head, like an art critic might inspect pieces in a gallery.

"I mean, I'd love to just start a boutique but I don't have the startup funds. _Hahaha!_ \- or the _help_ , or a _location_ , or the _reputation_. I'll have to start as an intern in some larger business probably, if I want to ever actually make it into the industry."

He stretches and then clasps his hands behind his head, not really sure what to do with himself now that he's here in her room. He fidgets a little, scratching an itch on the bag of his leg with the opposite foot, and watches Marinette pensively from the relative safety of peeking past his elbow. How much of his trust fund was he _really_ going to need once his 18th birthday came around? He's positive that if he rallied their friends and classmates getting help - hired help if necessary - wouldn't be an problem. The main issue would be a location. Vacant buildings in Paris rarely stay vacant for long -- he shakes off his train of thought as she starts speaking again in a low murmur that his cat ears perk forward to catch.

"It feels like I still have so much left to do, and the amount of time to do it in is only shrinking. Once the school year starts back up the course work will keep me too busy."

"To work on your designs?"

" **Heh!** Well yeah, but other .. _things_ , kitten. Other things."

She falls quiet again, having crouched down by one of the mannequins that's sporting an apron, and he lowers his arms and circles briefly in place to figure out where he can sit down, not wanting to move any of her work.

"... Mari?" 

"Yeah?"

"What do you mean? What other things?"

Of course he's curious. Her response didn't exactly illuminate what she's been preoccupied trying not to think about for the past ten minutes. She clears her throat and fidgets awkwardly with one of the apron's ties, glancing over to see him seating himself on her chaise lounge, leaned forward toward her, arms on his knees and hands clasped in front. His stare looks so innocently earnest that suddenly she's certain he's feigning ignorance to tease her, and her cheeks burn while she waves dismissively at him with one hand.

"...... _Things_ , Chat Noir. Ahem, _fun things_. Things that I uh - I want to try but don't have someone to really try them with."

"But your friend, Alya -"

She stares open-mouthed at him, brow set in disbelief, amazed for that for once he's apparently incapable of picking up on what she's saying between the lines. 

"Ah - A-Alya would probably love to try _things_ with me if I wanted to try them with her, but she's not the person I'm interested in, _you stupid cat_." 

Chat Noir's eyebrows shoot straight up into his hairline underneath the black mask and he straightens up, slowly shifting his legs, trying to nonchalantly cross them at the ankles as he leans back, claws digging in lightly to the cushion. 

"..... _oh_. I um, I see."

Marinette refuses to look at him after that, flushing bright pink at his blatant attempt to hide his ... _awkwardness_ , a hilariously familiar maneuver from boys over the years. She's seated cross-legged in front of the mannequin wearing the blue apron, gazing thoughtfully at the embroidered initials on its pocket. A good two minutes pass in silence, and once her more immature thoughts retreat along with the heat on her cheeks, she turns to face the boy that's currently sitting in her bedroom instead, holding his gaze for just a second as he looks up. 

"I didn't realize 'til the next morning, you know ... but, I remember. You said it was: someone you know when you aren't Chat Noir-," she holds up a finger and taps it with her opposite hand, "- someone who knows you-," another finger, "- but doesn't know you care for them." Last finger, last tick on the list.

Chat feels sweat break out on his forehead as a chilling thrill rattles his chest, his hands clenching with more than just the effort of balancing on the edge of the chaise lounge. He made a Mistake. Marinette caught the Mistake. Marinette is a very clever girl, and she has been aware of the Mistake and it's many implications for about a month. With sickening anxiety dripping coldly into his every extremity, Chat Noir composes the best poker face he can manage, and says nothing. 

"... and then, you turned to _me_ a few minutes later." She looks up from staring impassively at her fingers, and now he's the one avoiding her eye. Following his gaze, the calendar with a photograph of roses on the wall over her computer is apparently suddenly _incredibly_ fascinating. 

"So I mean ... Do I know you when you aren't Chat Noir?" 

((Shit. _Shit._ )) 

He swallows, throat gummy with sudden dryness. What should he say? How can he possibly try to play this off? He _can't_. The options are to either lie to her face and lose all the respect he's ever earned, probably get forcibly removed from her bedroom, potentially never get spoken to again ..... Or, admit that he let slip a fact which _drastically _reduces the pool of civilian identities that could moonlight as a catsuited superhero. Admit that Chat Noir is someone Marinette has known already. Admit that Chat Noir, who kissed her silly late one night a few weeks back, has a certain advantage over her where equal knowledge is concerned. That maybe Chat Noir really is as selfish and manipulative as he feels he is.__

__He croaks out a reply after a minute of heavy anticipation hanging in the air, cat ears pinning back nervously to his sunny hair._ _

__"... How do you want me to answer that?"_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real life has been a dick. I had a longer chapter planned, but it grew lengthy so I decided to snip it and make it into Chapter 8. I'm pretty sure I'll have at least a Chapter 9, but probably not exceed 10.
> 
> I've been staring at this chapter so long it all seems horrible to me but that's how most art works so *flings it into the void* here it is anyway! All commentary and criticism/advice is welcome, either here or in my tumblr (@gigglesnorts) inbox.


	8. C'est moi, Chat Noir

_**( "So I mean ... Do I know you when you aren't Chat Noir?" )** _

_**( "... How do you want me to answer that?" )** _

~ ~ ~

Marinette watches Chat Noir for about a minute, her face solemn in consideration. He's clearly trying not to turn tail and run, but her staring is making the cat nervous. He's pinned in place by her steady, unblinking blue gaze, unchecked anxiety and the shamed look from earlier making him shift on the seat. This is what his self-blaming guilt was about, she surmises, or at least part of it. There's a long pause once she finally lowers her eyes as she chews on the question, and she gets up slowly from the floor to sit next to him on the lounge chair, not very close but not far away either. 

"You should protect your identity from Papillon. Even from me. Even if you don't want to. ... Because, if I were akumatized someday, you know? I'd be a risk."

Chat releases a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding in, and then suddenly his heart is pounding. He was expecting - everything. Nothing. Something explosive and angry and hurt and betrayed, like his worst daydreams about triple-sided secrecy had predicted. Or arguably worse, she might have shoved him out of her room, out of her life. She could have wanted nothing to do with furthering the complicated mess their previous encounter on her balcony had made of their casual friendship. There's no way she hasn't been pondering about his identity since he let slip the clue that made it so much more tantalizing to wonder about. Yet here she is, calm and _rational_ and far more patient that he's ever imagined himself to be if he'd ever gotten a hint about Ladybug. 

"I trust you, Marinette. I know you. You won't be compromised like that." 

He stares at the paw-like caps on his boots, voice quiet and touched with emotion. His arms are straining with the carefully controlled slouch he's become too nervous to adjust, backside halfway sliding off the lounge chair with his tail pinched beneath. 

"You can't know that." 

Chat's shoddily composed pokerface is breaking when she touches his shoulder to make him look up. His breath hitches; he can hear his pulse thumping staccato in all four ears simultaneously somehow and it's as though he's wobbling to balance on a tightrope. He's about to fall. 

"But I don't like liars, especially when the lies are about me. And if you don't want to say it then .. I just won't press."

Chat is struck with a distinct sense of déjà vu for the second time within the past month, but can't focus on figuring out why with how distracted he is - her eyes are gorgeous, glittering and eager, intrigued but concerned, and they hold him in place - like they have so many times while he's dreaming he'd been bold enough to have caressed her face when she gawked awkwardly at him in the rain on that first day. He stares at her agape for a moment, then hurries breathlessly to speak when she loses her nerve and starts to flush, taking back her hand from his shoulder to face her cluttered room again.

"You .. y-you want to know? You _want_ me to say it?"

The disbelief and _relief_ making his voice wobble is heart-wrenching. She glances up in time to see him shove both hands into his hair, seemingly overwhelmed, albeit with a lax, tired grin shining through his arms. He's been so used to Ladybug rejecting his advances and insisting on their mutual secrecy that Marinette being okay with the idea of him unmasking himself had simply never occurred as a possibilty. A slightly hyperventilated giggle escapes his throat and then she's concerned, a few fingertips tuggling at one of his arms.

"I _shouldn't._ You shouldn't. But .. yeah. I want to know who you are, Chat Noi- .. wh- are you all right?" 

He can't stop laughing for a few seconds, but when he does his green eyes are shimmering wetly, noticeable even through the tinted lenses of his mask. His hands wrap around the few fingertips she'd offered, and he sobers himself - at least enough to speak - with an amazed smile still stretching his mouth to the side.

"Marinette- I'm -- sorry. I wasn't.. really wasn't in the greatest frame of mind that night. I had been thinking a lot - a sarcastic uh, friend, of mine says I think 'too much'. I should have - maybe I should have stayed away, pretended I hadn't heard you, I don't know. I should at least have been paying enough attention to have considered my responses to your questions more carefully. If Ladybug knew I'd been so casual about it she'd probably punch me or chuck me off a roof or something." 

Her mouth crimps in a wry little smile; if _anyone_ else were involved, he's right. Ladybug has chucked him off of roofs for lesser crimes than accidentally revealing his civilian side. He finally drags himself up from his nervous, slumped-over hunch and half-turns, setting a knee sideways on the chaise. A very Chat-typical grin spreads over him as a thought occurs to him and he straightens up for proper delivery. 

"But, to answer your question since _you_ aren't going to kill me for it, I guess the-"

She's seen that look, that preparatory pose far too many times to count. Marinette snatches back her fingers from his grasp, preemptively eyerolling, and admonishes him in a frantic hurry but it's to no avail.

"Chat Noir..! Chaton, _no._ Please."

"- _ **the cat**_ -"

" **CHAT NOIR.** "

" _ **-is out of the bag.**_ ... Heheh!"

Marinette immediately throws the chaise lounge's chunky pink-and-brown pillow at him. He ducks cleanly with a liquid lean backward and is still snickering when he catches it as it whiffs over his face.

"UGH. I can't believe I like you sometimes!" She groans the complaint through gritted teeth, hands over her face.

"Only sometimes? You wound me, princesse."

'I _should_ wound you. Punning in my room is a punishable offense, starting five minutes ago.'

". . . . . A _pun_ ishable offense?"

" _CHAT NOIR, I swear to-_ "

"Teasing Mari, only teasing! Besides, I think - - you like me a little too much to inflict wounds anyway."

Her eyes flick up to his smiling green ones, peeking between her fingers with an inflamed flush on her cheeks. "Don't tempt me, cat. I could."

"I've seen you flex once! _Sans doute_ you could, I believe you!"

"Wh- ... No you don't. Jerk. I will _end you_ someday after a pun if you keep testing me."

He offers the pillow back and she slumps against the back of the chair in a squinting pout, holding it over her chest, knees bent and feet grumpily toeing his calf in quiet protest of being teased. One of his hands goes to her feet to still their sulky attack on his leg, and the banter falls silent for a minute.

~ ~ ~

"... I do know you, then."

".. Yeah, you do." 

He confirms it just so, watching her carefully as she digests the information. Her eyes are darting around the same few inches of her ceiling. it looks like the same face he's seen her make when she's performing some mental acrobatics trying to figure out a missing piece of a math problem. She's had roughly a month to wonder about it, so getting the confirmation probably changed her outlook on him somehow. Eventually her thought process either comes to a conclusion or reaches an impasse, and she only blinks at him with a vague, pensive frown, expression otherwise unreadable.

"You know .. to be honest, I thought for sure you'd ask to know who I am."

"... I have my theories. And well, you know the phrase - _'Curiousity killed the cat.'_ So I'll just.. not .. not, uh, think about it. If you don't want to tell me.." Her voice doesn't sound like she believes what she's saying, and he chuckles to himself.

"You know, in English, there's another part to that saying."

"Oh?" The smirk on his face draws attention to the line of his jaw and she tries to meet his gaze without wavering, which is difficult when one is distracted with a hand idly caressing one's ankle. "How does it go then?"

"You're right on the first part. It goes - 'Curiosity killed the cat, _but satisfaction brought it back._ '" 

Chat accentuates his perfect English diction with a soft squeeze trailing up her her lower calf, and gets a primally rewarding jolt of interest when it makes her inhale at bit too sharply to be coincidental. The last third of his belt-tail starts to flick back and forth on the far side of the chaise lounge, catching her eye.

While linguistics aren't her forté, she parses the English well enough to understand the implication it carries. Knowledge might be dangerous, but the pleasure of finding out could make risking it worthwhile. She tenses under the teasing promise of interesting things in his smile, in his hungry eyes, in the way his fingers have begun to massage her leg. All at once her body feels overheated and sensitive. She's woken up a few times in the past month in a similar state because of him, but it's not three in the morning, she's not _alone_ , and doesn't have a blanket to muffle herself with while she deals with it.

_**( "It's a very interesting, very tempting thought ... to tell you 'yes' and see what happens without worrying about it." )** _

She shifts the lounge pillow away and sits up to put a hand over his, weight propped up behind her on a fist. It's not a hard 'no', not a message to stop, but the massage on her lower leg fades after a couple seconds, and she stretches her legs out past where he's sitting. Chat turns his hand over to take hers in his palm, bending slowly with a casual flexibility and patience to slowly kiss her fingertips, and his eyes gleam up at her under a curtain of blonde fringe, checking for permission. 

_**( "I don't need to know your real name to let you love me." )** _

Marinette only bites her lip, no longer meeting his eyes. She can feel them burning into her skin, a neon green heat lingering on the side of her face, her hand, her shoulder. He'd stop if she wanted. She doesn't want to. After another kiss, lips dragging just a bit down the length of her fingers, he gently pulls her arm upward. His lips find the inside of her wrist, as do his teeth with soft nips at the tender skin. A breathy gasp fills her chest before she can clamp it down, and while halfheartedly tugging her arm back she looks up at him to gauge his reaction and wonder if any of this is wise, and immediately regrets it.

Chat Noir is much closer to her than he was a moment ago, pupils blown wide in spite of the mask meant to make them look like cats' eyes. She can't help but watch as he tongues his lips to wet them, and languidly, _deliciously_ licks his teeth as he reaches for her face. With a flash of realization and willpower - despite the heat surging low in her stomach - she uses the hand she'd been supporting herself against the chair with to intercept his, interrupting his hone-in toward her mouth. Only, all that means is that she's suddenly off-balance, falling back against the chair again, and pulling him along to follow.

Their noses are a scant few centimeters apart and both teens try to refocus by gulping large breaths of air, hearts thumping a duet. Her left hand is clutching his right into immobility, but already he's stroking what he can reach of her fingers in an unconscious habit, aching to touch and be touched.

~ ~ ~

The black-gloved hand that had been massaging her leg braces against the chair close to her head, and Chat fights to stay still. Every instinct within the cat spirit transforming him is urging him to knead at it in absentminded pleasure but he'd rather not start tearing her furniture to ribbons. Not _yet_. 

He bites his lower lip for a dose of distracting pain that doesn't even work, and looks down at the girl that's sprawled half-beneath him, expecting to meet her eyes and decide what to do after that, not really capable of thinking too far ahead at the moment. He's startled to see her face scrunched in what looks almost like a pained grimace, brows pinching together and mouth half-open, his magical ears pinning forward as he focuses to listen to her heavy, almost panting breaths. Her face is flushed, and even her neck is tinged pink.

"Mari?" She half-whimpers, shaking her head a little, and only squeezes the grip she has on his hand. He glances around, checking her over for scratches or - or is he resting his weight on her somewhere? Leaning on her hair? Finding nothing and with both hands occupied, he gently noses at the top of her head, voice dropping into a concerned murmur. "Marinette ... Princesse? What's wrong?"

She doesn't respond, maybe can't. Maybe she's having second thoughts on letting him get this close. Maybe Plagg's insistence earlier tonight that he stop moping and _"Just go TALK TO HER, ugh! Get this over with! I can't stand you groaning yourself awake and moping at yourself for the rest day anymore!"_ was a poor reason to break down and visit her after all. Maybe he needs to give up on both Ladybug and Marinette because he's unable to choose now that he's earned the trust and interest of both of them. Maybe .. maybe he shouldn't be here.

He can hear her nervous swallows and as the carnal desire recedes and is replaced by worry coiling more tightly in his temples with each passing second, he gradually becomes aware of how rapid her pulse is, palpable in the strong grip she's still got on one of his hands. He tries to gently loosen her fingers, but she rasps out something unintelligble, ending with a "nonono- just- jus'waitokay _wait_ " in a rushed exhale. Superhero strength or not, his muscles are tiring leaning over her like this, and carefully he shifts so that his left arm now supports his weight on the seat of the chaise. It puts his head much closer to her chest than her face, and afraid that he's managed to cross an invisible line, rests his cheek softly on her stomach. There really isn't room or maneuverability to do much else if she won't let him move away, but he sighs out a sad, mumbled 'sorry' anyway.

Gradually Marinette recovers from her surge of panic. She shudders through a few forced deep breaths, relaxes the deathgrip she's got on his hand. Slowly she realizes that somehow Chat Noir is purring, if it can be called that. It's low, barely audible, but the rumbling from his chest and throat vibrates a soothing rhythm through her own chest and abdomen. After several long minutes staring down at the black cat-ears atop his head of now too-familiar, mussed but beautiful blonde hair, she raises a hand to stroke through it one more time from front to back, fingernails dragging gingerly on his scalp. Her voice is a whisper, cracking and dry.

"I know who you are, but I'm not supposed to."

It takes a few seconds for that to sink in, a few breaths before the purr stutters and dies as he lifts his head to look up at her.

".. What? What do you mean?"

Her mind is whirling, shuffling everything that's happened in the past several years and making rapidfire connections. There's a jigsaw image of the boy and the superhero partner coming together in her mind's eye, everything fitting into place now that the one connecting piece has been found - and what an unpredictable puzzle piece it turned out to be. Marinette closes her eyes against a rush of heady vertigo, a shy but anxious smile on her lips.

"That's - this is nuts. You're going to hate me. ... Oh my _god_ , you're going to hate me for this."

"What are you talking about?" Chat Noir takes back his hand, her grip now weak and shaking, in order to gets his arms beneath himself and sit up. 

"I-I can't believe this." The girl grins, stress returning the unconscious shy stutter back to her as she places her hands on her cheeks. "I've b-been .. SUCH an asshole to you, to _YOU_ oh my god I cannot- I can't- SHE _KNEW!_ "

Chat's head quirks to one side in a way that would be unbearably endearing in any other context, but he looks so _confused_ and all at once she **gets** it. Whatever his kwami is, it hasn't told him anything useful either. They've both been equally blind to the immense, stupid irony of it all. She laughs, but in a barking way, angry and regretful and trying to cope. When Chat Noir leans forward to try and embrace her, completely at a loss as to whatever's suddenly happened, she wriggles out of it and just grins furiously for a second, chewing on her lower lip, a few tears running silently down her face in sheer, unhinged frustration.

"She kn- _knew_. Tikki _knew_ that you've been Adrien this _entire t-time_ , and she didn't tell me."

He freezes at the use of his name, jaw slack and eyes huge. Her anger and hurt roll off of her in a wave of palpable heat, and for a few seconds he has absolutely no idea how to proceed safely, completely uncertain if she's going to unleash her anger at him and not prepared to deal with it if she is. He knows how to deflect or absorb his father's, or a teacher's, but not hers. He's never even _seen_ Marinette this wounded and incensed before. Her eyes refocus from fixating on a point of empty space between them, to looking directly at him. 

"Th-the same! They're the same exact g-green, I'm so stupid! Y-you've been-- you're Adrien." The fiery anger dies down abruptly by the end of the sentence, and she gestures tiredly at him, motioning in front of her face in the shape of the mask. "Aren't you."

It isn't a question anymore. After a short hesitation, he feels the tingle dance over his skin that signals when Plagg is about to release the transformation and for lack of any better ideas, lets it happen. After the flash of green and black energy fades, the spirit immediately zips up and away somewhere else in the room, and neither teen bothers to watch where. Marinette's mouth falls open slightly, then she licks her lips and shakes her head in disbelief with a flat-toned mutter .

"... It f-fixes your hair. That's- that's so unfair. That's cheating. This isn't fair."

He's nervous, more nervous than when he tried to confess to Ladybug the first time, on Valentine's Day. He wants to make things better, but he has no idea what's going on. Without Chat Noir's mask, without the svelte costume he feels exposed. There's not even a shred of the anonymity that let him feel like he could flirt, sass, test limits without someone watching over his shoulder. He's back on the spotlighted pillar Marinette kept him on.

"How did you figure it out? Is.. is it a bad thing that I'm Adrien?"

"I mean - No, it's just- I don't, I don't get why she didn't just, tell me. I understand w-why you didn't, _you_ couldn't. But _they_ could have, I mean, if you're the good guy and I'm definitely not the bad guy th-then I don't get why the-- stupid -- all this _TIME_ , ugh!!"

Marinette gestures her frustration into the air between them with shaking hands in between shaking breaths and Adrien _tries_ to follow what she's talking about but doesn't know who she's referring to other than the two of them. No one else knows he's Chat Noir. The next time her hands come flailing in more or less his direction he reaches for them, but she gasps and retreats back to the slanted side of the chaise lounge as though burned by his touch. He can't help but wince.

"Mari .."

"I _hurt_ you, Cha- a- Adrien."

"What?"

"I hurt you, and I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to. L-Ladybug was supposed to- she should have loved you. She's stupid. ... I'm an- an idiot."

"You're not- Marinette, _Ladybug_ isn't here, _you_ are. I'm Adrien, and I'm Chat Noir, but I'm here with you. I want to love _you._ I- I don't understand why you're so upset. I.. tried, as Adrien. But I screwed up the day and I wanted to do it over or at least talk to you but never had the time to do it, and _I'm sorry,_ you just - As Chat Noir, you --" 

He falters, not knowing if something he wants to say is going to make anything better or worse. They meet eyes again, Marinette's lip wobbles for a second, and Adrien's brain flies into a panic. If he made her cry he would not forgive himself for a year. Scooting closer, he tries to reach for her a second time but now she's the one giggling nervously, sadly, a hand scrubbing at her eyes.

"Ladybug is .. she's been right in front of you for years, she's _blind_ and she doesn't deserve you. If she'd just _told me_ I could have -- none of this would have happened, it wouldn't have happened like this. All th-this.. wasted time. I don't deserve you."

"Marinette, _stop._ " He leans into her personal space despite every bit of body language suggesting he shouldn't, trying to break back into the closeness they had only a few minutes before. The spirit of Chat Noir disappeared along with his Kwami, but he tries to channel it anyway, to recover the Marinette that can make sense around him. The back of his hand brushes, just barely, over her jaw. "Princesse ... Please just.. _talk_ to me."

~ ~ ~

She's withering under her own guilt, afraid she's about to break whatever tenuous relationship they have with what she's about to reveal, and Adrien is only not crossing the distance between them to comfort her out of respect for the arm's length she's keeping him at, even though her fingertips are barely resting against his collarbone. Marinette doesn't want him to come closer, but she also clearly doesn't want him to leave. 

She wants him to _understand_ but she's talking around him not _to_ him and there's something, something he's missing and if he could only figure out what piece of the puzzle he needs he could put everything together. Everything would click into place. He can sense just how much he's sitting on the cusp of something **important** but it's like she wants him to reach the conclusion on his own instead of having to be told. 

Marinette looks up, jaw clenched and aching with the effort of not breaking apart into completely uncontrollable sobbing. He looks confused, so utterly lost and hurt because she can't just _say it._ One of his hands is curled on the chaise cushion, threatening to stab through it, and the other is on his knee, in a fist one second and halfway to rising to her face the next.

"D-don't." She sniffles, scooting back a little, barely out of reach now. "I'll .. I'll just _show_ you b-but you're going to hate it, so don't. You're going to hate me but I don't-- th-this can't work. We can't work unless I do it."

He wants to argue. What could possibly be so bad?? He's known Marinette for years. There isn't.. some dangerous secret to her. She's a classmate, a artist, a friend, his first significant kiss (and a little more), his first love with someone that isn't out of his reach with the responsibility of fighting evil every day of the year.

 

"Marinette, whatever you.. think I'm going to do, you're wrong. ... Okay? I promise. Just, show me. Tell me! Help me understand! I w-" he shuffles on his knees to reach for her again but she whimpers anxiously and stumbles off the chaise to stand in front of it. Her legs are weak and wobbly, and she watches a fresh surge of wounded bafflement crease his beautiful face. A hand comes up, shakily waving him down. Don't follow me, don't get up. I can't.

"... I _want_ to understand, Mari."

A minute passes, each teen staring at the other. The only sounds are hers - struggling to get her ragged, hyperventilated breathing back to something like normal. When she's ready, her voice is almost a whisper, but no longer wavering.

".. Tikki.. ?"

There's a long pause during which the handsome boy stews in an entirely new flavor of confusion, until both of them look up to the sound of soft scuffling and a high, squeaky argument coming from her bed.

"You - just - stay here and _be silent,_ Plagg. Do. Not. Speak!" "Hmph! ... fine. You owe me."

A streak of red flashes to Marinette's shoulder, leaning up to nuzzle her cheek and whisper something in her ear. Marinette smiles, very softly and very unconvincingly, gazing resolutely down at the handsome boy sitting on her lounge in her bedroom.

_"Transforme-moi."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate chapter title: Adrien Is Confused, All The Time, Forever.  
> Alternate alternate chapter title: (586) You're going to find someone that you love very much and that loves you, and then you're gonna find an additional person that you can't stop staring at from across the room.  
> Alternate alternate alternate chapter title: "Adrien tries to follow what she's talking about" / "oh my GOD does he try... he tries all the time"  
> Alternate alternate alternate alternate chapter title is just a .gif of Tikki rolling her eyes.


	9. je t'aime à la folie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I left this fic in the dust for more than a year - if you've been waiting, I love you bb, hope you like it. Season 2 is absolutely the best motivation.

**_"Transforme-moi."_ **

Tikki grins brightly and waves at Adrien just before getting pulled backward, spiralling into the black - no, they're red now - earrings Marinette is wearing, and before the transformation even really begins, he understands. The five polka dots appear and everything he thought he knew jarringly shifts several meters and comes crashing back, with _Marinette_ supplanting every memory and dream and fantasy he's ever had about Ladybug.

The flashes of pink and white light dazzle his eyes, but he doesn't flinch away. There are stars and afterimages in his vision but he only stares as the swirls of brightness resolve themselves over her limbs into swathes of familiar black spots on red, bouncy red ribbons in her hair, and the yo-yo that's bonked him on the head an uncountable number of times. It's nothing short of miraculous that he manages to stay upright on her chaise lounge. The knowledge he now has is at oncethrilling and exciting, but also worrying, confusing, and damning. 

Ladybug sat behind him in class during his entire first year of public schooling. It had taken him a long time to understand it was a crush consuming her and not flustered antipathy, but nonetheless Ladybug had been painfully shy and nervous around him. Ladybug was the one who had soundly kicked his butt in Mecha Strike III then offered him her - her _lucky charm._ Ladybug had designed a hat he'd been allergic to and worn anyway. (He had _winked_ at her!)

Ladybug had asked for his help with a flushed face the week before their chemistry final exam last year as Alya had cheered her on two aisles away in the library. Ladybug knew he had put on the charm for Marinette - which meant that he ostensibly flirted with other girls than her - because she was _the same person_ \- and suddenly Marinette's earlier comment about "stray cats" made a lot more sense. 

Ladybug is - is an artist, and a designer, and a burgeoning _boulangère_ -in-training. Ladybug doodles flowers and her friends' faces and shirt designs and ladybugs and black cats with belled collars, in the margins of nearly every test she's taken since collège. He'd held her close and slow-danced with Ladybug at a friend's party.

Even as these adorable facts humanize his heroine in a hurry, just as many and far more sobering revelations reveal themselves out of the routine mental image of his classmate.

Marinette is a magical protector of Paris, just like him. Marinette has put her life on the line for her city as a matter of course for the past several years. Marinette has witnessed him taking _fatal blows for her_ and saved him from dying at the hands of akumatized people by undoing the damage with her Lucky Charm. Marinette has watched multiple times as he became a thrall to evil because of akumas and worked out - on her own - how to defeat the enemy and free him. Marinette had been dangerously close to giving up her miraculous stones to save Adrien Agreste from Volpina while clinging to the side of the Eiffel Tower.

It's Marinette he trusted with his life, and Marinette who trusted him with her own. It's Marinette who had become his best friend, wisecracking and sighing at his puns on the rooftops on the few slow-moving patrol days they were able to infrequently share. It was Marinette who had pushed him away these several years for their mutual safety, Marinette who had murmured his civilian name like an apologetic prayer while half-knelt over him on his bedside last month, and _Marinette_ who had then fulfilled fully a quarter of his lovestruck teenage fantasies by exploring his mouth with her own.

_Marinette_ had said to Chat Noir - practically _verbatim_ , he can't believe he didn't piece these two people together..! -- what Ladybug had made clear so long ago. No matter how much we want to, we can't. We shouldn't. It's too dangerous. And yet, a month ago she had sleepily assented to a goodnight kiss from him that ended up as much more than just an embrace. The next day he had tried to get close as a civilian - because he had a chance! because _Adrien_ could get close! Adrien was allowed! - but tripped over his own upbringing and failed miserably to make any kind of human connection once the public's eyes were upon him.

That very same _evening_ Ladybug - Marinette, he mentally corrects himself - showed up at his window. She had even noted to him herself that she had passed by once already and without even thinking about what that might have implied or what it might lead to, Adrien had pointed out the blind spot in his father's surveillance system and invited the hero of Paris into his bedroom. He - Adrien - trusted Ladybug, because Chat Noir trusted Ladybug without question. But Ladybug didn't know that, ... right?

So does the level of danger change arbitrarily based on which of them initiates a visit? She was worried some paparazzi might have followed him to her bakery - but she wasn't worried the same sleazy photographers might find and tail _her_? Was she not concerned that she might get caught hanging from the rooftop across the road on security CCTV? Did she have more faith in her own stealth than in his? Had she known, while kissing him stupid, who he was?

A week later he had stumbled over confessing his feelings - just once more, maybe she'll get it this time, maybe she'll understand he isn't just teasing, maybe she'll give him a chance - to Ladybug, and with this new knowledge, his memory of it casts her in a terribly conflicting light. She **might** have known. That might have been why she "couldn't do _this_ as Ladybug". She might have known who he was, and wanted to keep him safely at a distance.

But if that's true, if she'd known then, why get so shy around Adrien, but not Chat Noir? Why did Ladybug throw herself into kissing Adrien, but Marinette couldn't? Didn't she like his civilian side? Does perhaps her _partner_ mean more to her than her puppy love? He blinks out of his thoughts, taking in the girl before him with fresh bouts of conflicted feelings laid bare in his expression. Ladybug notes his change in demeanor and startles at the renewed attention.

~ ~ ~

There's a long silence while they look each other over - really look, seeing a friend and longtime classmate in a new light, a crush from a very different angle, a partner as though for the first time. Marinette shifts anxiously in place. For the first time, the spots and mask offer no dose of the usual confidence - she isn't Ladybug, just dressed like her in order to explain something she couldn't put into words. After a long minute of enduring his confused, bewildered, and increasingly hurt-looking green staring, she drops her gaze to her hands, clenched stiffly in front of her stomach. The skintight suit feels far too baring, now.

"I-I'm sorry. For what I said, at your- in your room. I was trying to - it was meant to be a _joke_ but I'm not really - I didn't think you'd -" she gasps a breath to steady her voice, dropping an octave. "I didn't consider how you must have felt. It was crass, and I should have .. um.. _actually_ apologized. Instead of just _uh_ \- ... instead."

Adrien's eyes have softened into something more like fondness when she peeks back up, cheeks aflame.

"I told you not to apologize for the kiss .. my Lady." Her eyes go wide, and the flush burns hotly at the moniker, freshly embarrassing or endearing or maybe both. "But I accept the apology for the.. joke, as it were."

He looks so kind, too kind. He's smiling with his glittering green eyes although it doesn't quite reach the faint, pensive grimace on his face. Marinette breaks the gaze a second time and takes a step back, feet bumping things on the cluttered floor, hands groping blindly for the edge of her desk. He's about to ask her something awful and she needs the support. He knows she can sense the questions hanging between them and lets her situate herself into sitting on the ladder leading to her bed before letting them drop.

"Why .. Adrien as Ladybug, but not as Marinette? ... Why Chat Noir as Marinette but not as Ladybug?"

Knowing they were coming doesn't soften the dig. She inhales a little sharply and holds it for a few seconds.

"I didn't .. I didn't _mean_ to kiss you, in your room." She sighs with a waver and drops her head into her hands, staring at the curtain of her hair, regaining her steadier voice after a length of time. "And Ladybug wasn't going to - she isn't allowed to get in the habit with Chat Noir. She can't. ... I can't."

"I, but .. I _know_. I had accepted that, or tried to. So why would you let Chat Noir close after all that? After years of telling him no with the mask _on_?"

His question cuts to the quick for both of them. He angles himself to halfway to rising off the couch toward her, and she bites down a guilty whimper, shrinking away from the movement.

" ... Did you know it was me?"

"No! No - I didn't - I had no idea until just now - like, five minutes ago."

The implications of that roll back and forth between them. Ladybug is trying to articulate the emotions thumping around in her chest into words that might make sense, but it takes a long time. The silence stretches, then stings open again when Adrien snaps out a laugh - barely a laugh - of disbelief.

"There was just never enough time."

"Time for what?"

"For .. for everything."

Her lip threatens to wobble, still so retroactively angry about the way the past several years have felt so wasted, but she clamps it by biting down hard on her lower lip. Giving in to the urge to sob out of frustration and nervousness and shame won't help anything right now, so she grits her teeth and soldiers on, trying actively to loosen the lump that has been residing in her throat since Chat became Adrien about two feet in front of her.

"The first year we were given the Miraculous Stones, I missed _so much_ class my parents basically sat me down for an intervention. I turned in a ton of papers and reports and projects that I had to scramble to do an hour before the deadline. I would try to go out with friends and get interrupted. I honestly think that happened more often than it didn't, you know? Heh - well, of course you know, you were there. School -- akuma. Weekend? Akuma. Museum with Alya? _Akuma._ Summer break? Akuma at _least_ every other day. No such thing as vacation anymore! Hanging out with classmates? Whoops sorry gotta take a raincheck, one of them has become an akuma. At home in my own bedroom?? _Akuma!!_

I think the only reason my life became easier to manage is because Papillon realized we weren't so easily defeatable. After the third year or so he - I don't know, he got tired?? It's like - he's either distracted more now because of his own stupid life, or just throws akuma out in front of us once in a while to make sure we know he's still there. Still out there being evil and broody and wasting everyone's time and energy just because he _can_! Most akuma don't feel half as threatening now as they did back in collège.

But even without as many interruptions, there still was never enough _time_. I never had **time** to try and - and just - just talk to you! If I wasn't cramming for school, I was helping my parents downstairs in the bakery, or watching Manon and her little brother for the billionth time because I always needed more cash for my designs in here - when I had any energy left for working on them. Even the times where I finally felt like I could try and say hello - on my own, of my own volition - aha! no! Photoshoots. Practice. Lessons. _Au revoir, Adrien, à bientôt._

A-and that's just Marinette, toward Adrien! It's not like Ladybug and Chat Noir had any extra time either, is it? We have to alternate patrols almost the entire year just to have enough time to be civilians and you know what??"

Marinette as Ladybug juts her chin contentiously at the floor she's staring at, daring it to interrupt her ranting.

"Sometimes I just don't go! Because I have things to do! And not enough time to do them in! And even if something did happen - like it always did, _always_ does - I would have known soon enough anyway. Even after fighting and winning, when we were together, things just kept going. No matter how much we let ourselves dally around after Lucky Charm and Cataclysm, five minutes doesn't last any longer. That isn't enough time to - to get to know you! To let myself get close to you! I couldn't let myself love Chat Noir! I _trust_ you but it felt like I didn't know anything about you!"

That last exclamation feels like a slap to the cheek. Adrien's jaw is slack, his mouth open and lips dry, and he's too stunned to get a word in before Marinette continues her tirade.

"But.. but then you dropped onto my balcony that first time, and there wasn't an akuma after you. You were on patrol while I was trying to finish two weeks' worth of maths revision into an all-nighter, and you stopped to say hello."

Marinette has her face in her hands again, pretending the tears squeezing out from beneath the heels of her palms and down her mask don't have the audacity to exist and make all of this more wearying and awkward than it already is. Her voice hitches, then sinks tiredly into its deeper, more serious tone.

"And then you came by again a month and a half later. And then _again_ , three months after that, and it wasn't ever for very long, but it felt like .. like we had a little time. And I started to get to know you."

With much effort due to the drain of emotional exhaustion, the girl takes away her hands from her eyes, blinking blearily at the dazed boy watching her from her chaise lounge. There's a quick glimmer of sparkling light, as subdued a detransformation as Tikki can manage before darting off into the dark above the bed.

"On the seventh or eighth visit, about a month ago, you told me you had love to give me, and I tried to tell you no, the same as I did for Chat Noir so many times as Ladybug. You know. You were there. It's too dangerous. Just because the akumas come less frequently doesn't mean Papillon isn't paying attention. If we tried to - to become something like that, something meaningful, it would - I would ... I couldn't have told you - Adrien - that if we'd tried to be together, I'd worry even more. We would always be watching our backs. I'd have to be careful while a civilian - even more than I already am when I'm not Ladybug - and I knew I couldn't deal with that, so I told you no."

Marinette looks down at her hands, spots of wetness spattered on her skin, limp and tired and rambling, and this time doesn't jumpily react with nervous aversion when he makes to get off the chair and approach her where she's still sitting in the middle of the ladder.

"And then.. th-then you asked to kiss me, a-and I wanted it so much, in spite of everything, despite all my talk about caution and danger. I didn't know you were Adrien, I still didn't know your name, but I knew Chat Noir. I knew I _loved_ Chat Noir, so I let you. I trusted you."

She stares down at her hands, and at the larger pair of hands now resting softly over them, nervousness looming at the edges of her vision. If she looks up now she'll lose her voice and her nerve.

"You visited me the next day, but as .. yourself. I had just realized that you had let slip that I knew you, but I didn't know _this_ you was _that_ you, and then you w- Adrien was right in front of me, f-flirting with me. Flirting with me after years of me wanting exactly that to happen and never having the time or enough courage. And I went with it because I didn't know how else to react. Why would I say no? Dream come true. Wasn't it?"

The strong, slim fingers caress the back of her knuckles, warm against her clammy skin, soothing away the trembling in her fists.

"But something.. went wrong? You bottled yourself up and then I didn't know what to think. Because I don't know _you_ as well as I'd like to either, but I _want_ to. A-and I just wanted to talk to _you_ , to Adrien, but I had never texted your cell number or anything, and I couldn't ask Alya or Nino because they would know something was happening and want details and involve themselves like they always do, so I .. I went to your house instead, the only way I could.I know your father or his assistant wouldn't let me in, and Ladybug can't make house visits unless there's a risk of akuma targeting. Ladybug doesn't -- ring doorbells. I had just wanted to talk, but - "

"My Lady ..."

" - but I tried to tease, a little bit, and it just went so wrong, and you got so angry, and I was so sorry, I'm so sorry Adrien. It was manipulative, a-and selfish, and I only meant to calm you down .."

His hands gently draw hers upward, and she lets her eyes follow them up to his mouth, where his lips touch each of her knuckles in turn as her murmuring trails off.".. but I made things worse, and I ran away .. and then tonight .."

"Mm?" His lips quirk just a smidge at the corners, and she finally looks up fully at his face - straight into a smiling pair of eyes, deep emerald green in the low light of her bedroom, shimmering with whatever emotions he's stifling on her account - and the next thing she tries to say is strangled with emotion and a painfully bright heat in her chest, ending on a whisper.

".. I was just going to talk.. but you're really, really cute, Chat Noir. And I would have kept making irresponsible but wonderful decisions, I think, if you hadn't - if I hadn't realized who you were. Because I love you." 

There falls a stillness, a quiet between them heavy with bated breath. Adrien's fingers have gone from merely holding her hands near his lips to downright _clutching_ them to his chest, heartbeat thumping. His eyes crinkle at the corners and all at once he's laughing and there are tears rolling down his cheeks, and Marinette can't breathe for how much he looks like his younger self that day in the rain.

"Oh, My Lady--!"

He's giggling now, lost in it, and she wrenches her hands away to try and grab his forearms.

"I was stupid, okay? I know! It was all stupid and I'm sorry!" Adrien turns away from her touch, but only to choke on another laugh, and she follows the movement, clinging to his sleeve instead. 

"I've been -- the worst, I've been reckless and put us both in danger, a-and I've been - jealous, when I had no right to be, and I've jerked you around but I didn't mean to and I want to-""Marinette, stop!"

Although he regains his composure, Adrien's tears continue to fall, burning hot over the ecstatic grin on his face. The girl before him is half-tangled in the ladder, red-faced and shaking and hopeful and contrite.

"It hurt. I have been hurt, yes. I fell in love twice and it hurt getting pushed away so many times. All the misunderstandings - they hurt. All the lost time - oh yes, my Ladybug, it hurts me to my soul."

Her expression changes in a blink, lower lip trembling as she imagines for the hundredth time tonight all the moments of potential closeness they could have shared but never quite managed. But he stops that train of thought the second after it begins with a caress to her lips and chin.

"No matter what happened, I'll be okay, Marinette. We'll be okay. I'm - _ahaha~_ \- I've been hoping to hear those words for so long. _I have loved you... for so long._ But you just healed any hurt I've ever had, maybe. Say it again, Mari? Please. Say it again."

A fresh wave of almost overwhelming warmth blooms in her chest long before he finishes his pleading question, and with both of his hands snaking over the nape of her neck she feels herself smiling almost against his lips.

"... **I love you, Chaton** \-- I love you so much. _Adrien,_ I lo-mmph!"

~~~

A few long and heated moments later, her pigtails have been undone and mussed into rivulets over her shoulders. The ladder escaped and forgotten, Marinette lets herself be laid delicately back against the chaise lounge, a pair of strong hands teasing at her hips under her shirt. In spite of the jagged ache of emotional overload, she fondly combs his hair with her fingers and sighs in years-overdue, perfect contentment. Every movement from the boy sprawled over her drips with forgiveness, tenderness, and pure love-drunk affection as Adrien purrs his own healing mantra into the skin at her ear, her neck, her jawline, mouthed onto her shoulders and collarbones and anywhere he can reach:

_" **Dieu** , Marinette, je t'aime. My Lady, je t'aime tellement - toujours, Mari, je t'aimais toujours. Je t'aimerais toujours, si tu me quitte pas..."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 10/Epilogue is coming Soon™. Then I can officially be done and start writing for S2. :'D


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